Documenting Border Barriers addresses the exponential rise in the building of fences and walls between nations and territories, to keep people out. Each artwork in the series portrays a specific border barrier in the world today.
Join us in the Grebel Gallery for the opening reception on Saturday, November 21 at 2:30 P.M.! Please RSVP for catering purposes.
Documenting Border Barriers is a growing compendium of 25+ portraits of anti-migration border walls. It is a research-based series of etching-and-relief prints that are displayed as an installation.
As the number of people on the move has risen in recent years, so has the building of physical barriers. Wall-building, and tightening of immigration regulations have escalated on the borders of Europe, on the USA-Mexico border, in the Middle East, and on numerous borders worldwide. People fleeing war and economic and environmental crises are met with fences, walls and violence. Since 2000, the number of physical border barriers in the world has risen from about 15 to more than 80.
The artwork that comprises Documenting Border Barriers is created in the drypoint etching medium, the technique of scratching the image into the plate, then inking, wiping and printing onto paper. Through this direct, methodical method, razor wire, cement and steel are portrayed with visceral immediacy. To emphasize the severity of the barrier architecture on the land, representations of specific surroundings are omitted. Instead, an impression of landscape and Nature is created with an under-printing of wood grain patterns printed from boards.
Each print in the series is accompanied by a digitally printed text print of the same dimension, on the same grey paper, providing details like height, length, surveillance systems, and people affected. The imagery and texts are derived from online research, news reports, testimonials, and engagement with researchers, journalists and activists in the field.
This exhibit will be open from Saturday, November 7, 2026 to Wednesday, February 17, 2027.
Attend the launch reception
On Saturday, November 21, 2026, from 2:30 - 4:30 pm, join us at the Grebel Gallery to welcome the new exhibit and hear from artist, Pamela Dodds.
Light refreshments will be served during the event. Remarks begin at 3:00 pm.
Please RSVP for catering purposes. We’d love to see you there!
About the artist
Pamela Dodds (b. 1956, Halifax, Canada) works in printmaking, painting and drawing. Through her work, she explores the complexities and nuances of interpersonal relationships, and the reflection of these narratives in communities and societies. Purchasers include Cleveland Museum of Art, USA, Krakow Print Society, Poland, and McMaster Museum of Art, Canada. She lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Documenting Border Barriers, was first exhibited in Toronto, at Open Studio Printmaking Centre, 2022, then at the Border Walls & Borderlands International Academic Conference at University of Quebec in Montreal, 2022; at Museo de Arte, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, 2023, just steps south of the Border Wall, and in the borderlands city of Bolzano-Bozen, South Tyrol, Italy, 2025-26.
Dodds has presented this work as a panelist at international academic conferences in Arizona, Canada and Morocco. Her Documenting Border Barriers project has received awards at international printmaking bi/triennials in Brussels, Belgium, and Krakow, Poland, and support from Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.
For more, visit Pamela Dodds' website, Instagram, or Facebook.
Grebel Gallery Hours:
Grebel building hours or after hours by appointment.
Level 4, Conrad Grebel University College, 140 Westmount Rd N.
The gallery space is accessible via elevator, level 4 wheelchair icon. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to make your visit more welcoming.
To book a tour or host an event in the gallery, contact cpacoordinator@uwaterloo.ca.