It has been quite a journey, but after 4 years of covering both sides of the American / Mexican Border, I have finally finished my feature length (95 min) documentary. This is a multimedia production film including photography, video and narration. Being totally self-funded, it required me to study video and sound editing along the way.  Most of the summer was spent editing and writing the script for my narration. As I uncovered the vast intricacies and experienced the emotion and brutality of the border debacle, waded in after the media had sensationalized segments for salable stories to root out the many unknown facts and hidden agendas of both the major and minor players, not to mention the endless hours on hose back, foot and 4x4, in the air and on raids with BP,  as well as in the field with humanitarian groups,  it occurred to me that this was culminating into a form of philosophical sculpture. It became a mirror for humanity,  to show us  just how, through a detailed account, we deal with major issues. No matter where in the world they occur, or in the time line of history one goes, the formula seams to be the same.

Providing the information about what really happened here on the border at the turn of this century with compassion and objectivity will hopefully lead to future generations learning from our actions rather than following our example. This is my gift to humanity.  Donations are also gracefully accepted and appreciated so I may send copies to Washington. I am still available for lectures and exhibits, or if you would like to show this documentary in your school, at your function or fundraiser, please feel free to contact me.

Click here to view a trailer.

If you would like a first run signed copy or would like one sent as a gift, don't forget to include the mailing address you would like it to go to.
Please send your check for $18 plus $2 shipping to: Karl W Hoffman  P.O. Box 759  Arivaca, AZ 85601.

welcome to Living on the Border!

During the past several years I have covered the issues on the American/Mexican border in the Nogales to Arivaca area here in Arizona. Through my documentary work, I have strived to be as objective as humanly possible, but to portray objectively without criticism leaves the possibility of media bias or sensationalism. At some point the truth needs to be exposed, even if it is a particular view of the truth, and then it must withstand constructive dissection.

I have maintained this website for the presentation of my work and for information and education. Over the past years I have been contacted many times by an unusually wide variety of groups and individuals, including many students, so I feel that there is a need to expand this site to an interactive learning experience.

Solutions can only come by exchanging ideas and through communication, so first I have added an open public forum for those of you truly interested in the complexity of border issues and finding solutions and where uncensored concepts and observations can be exchanged along with questions. There are many groups, organizations and individuals with totally different views, many very stalwart in their beliefs. The goal of this forum is to present an arena where different views can be discussed and examined in a civilized forum without vulgar language or racism. Globalization is at the forefront of world issues and every civilized country that can be accessed by land or sea by an underdeveloped country has a border and immigration problem. Opening up this forum to the international community will hopefully lead to an even broader range of concepts.

With so much information regarding individuals, groups and organizations, etc, I have added a section for links directly to other sites. Please feel free to submit links that you feel would be beneficial to our members. Cross-linking would be great, but is not a requirement to post a link. I would also like to extend an invitation to other professionals who have information, art, or more to share on this subject, to also submit a link.

Sometimes an article from any number of media forms can be either very moving or extremely factual and informative. Another section that I feel is equally important will be a research section with a place for links to these news articles, blogs, etc., and will include a search window.

Besides continuing to add photography to the site, I will be regularly adding short media presentations, regarding different border situations and objectively portraying the philosophies, the mission and the accomplishments of individuals, groups or organizations and then open up the subject for discussion This will accomplish two things. It will first allow the group or individual to see how others observe them and second, it will expose others to new views and possibly an insight to different groups or individuals with their own perspective.

I have remained totally self-funded in order to stay as objective as possible and to protect the integrity of the Living on the Border project. All funding comes from freelance photojournalism, lectures, exhibits, and the sale of the documentary on DVD and prints.
Please contact me for information on any of the above.


artist statement
As you browse through my photographs of the physical walls, the steel barriers, immoveable strong and self-righteous, the highly technical surveillance systems, the gates and fences, what you don’t see are the echoes heard throughout the world of the walls we have put up in our minds and in our hearts. These walls, the strongest of all, each one of us has the power to either tear down or fortify.

The border is not just a place; it is the very thinnest line between the lives of human beings, subject to different laws, cultures and heritage, all intertwining for generations.

This is not just a collection of photographs documenting the plight of the illegal immigrant, but an intermingling of this phenomenon with everyday life on the border.

From the beginning of humanity, borders have been the frontier of its societies, the no-man's land where normal life is a rarity and parallel subcultures, governments and diverse border activities have to coexist subject only to a distant government and its political whims, changing ever so slowly. Borders are where day and night are worlds apart with totally different rules, but each with a certain respect for the other.

The border between America and Mexico is largely a low income area where its inhabitants live by their own convictions. There are those that grow up on the border with no other place that would seem real and others that are drawn to it for its freedom or opportunity to be creative. Adding to this mix, many elderly, disabled, or ill move here, attracted by not just the climate but the very low cost of medical services and prescription drugs available just across the border in Mexico.

I have found here a people that are compassionate with a deep respect for privacy yet ready to help one another while keeping an open mind to cultural and social differences. They are fearful that their world is about to change. This project documents the people living on the border and the changes that will cause the last American frontier to vanish before us.

Of the 1,940 miles of the America/Mexico border I have carefully chosen this few hundred mile stretch and the small town of Arivaca, Arizona (population 200) to center my attention on because it is so typical of the small, isolated, south western border towns, yet so vulnerable to change. Once we found this place, my wife and I sold our ranch in northwestern Colorado to move here so that I could photograph the everyday activities and evolution of life on the America/Mexico border.

The majority of the Mexicans that come here are a caring and considerate people who just want to work and return to their home in Mexico and their families where the cost of living is lower and medical and dental care is affordable. Closing the border creates many problems and hardships for both sides as well as escalating opportunities for people smugglers. The illegal drug trade is a totally different problem relating to social and economic values which is an American problem because we have created a consumer market for these products.

The images in this exhibition need no more explanation than the quiet contemplation into the moods, feelings and emotions resulting from the transformation of a quiet border town into a proverbial war zone.



Press Release
(promotional photos available on request)

Karl has been extensively been covering both sides the American/ Mexican border for the past 4 years. As a freelance photographer for many major publications and most recently for the Dutch magazine Nieuwe Revu (similar to our News Week magazine) and the Tucson Weekly, he has compiled a personal collection that has been on tour. This moving exhibit began as a generous collaboration with the Tubac Center for the Arts and its first solo show last October.

Karl’s documentary, which has gained international recognition and is used as a teaching aid at several major American universities that have large departments dedicated to international immigration and border studies and the Queens University in Belfast. It is also a permanent inclusion to the New Mexico University Library.

“This project is my gift back to humanity for the life I have experienced as an artist and is a documentation for future generations so they will know what happened here on the border at the turn of this century. When the word unimaginable comes to mind I must ask where we would be without photojournalism and how we could fully understand beyond the government numbers the true horrors of the holocaust”. KWH


Living on the Border is an insight to an area in our country that so few Americans could even imagine exists. Where living day to day requires coexisting along side the anguish and brutality of illegal immigration, were it is commonplace for the presence of armed military units under the sound of patrolling black hawks the stillness of a starry night can be broken at any time by the sounds of unrest

A once peaceful border town, with cattle roaming the main street, a place attractive to artist, free thinkers, and elderly is now being invaded by government occupation, building physical walls, steel barriers, immoveable strong and self-righteous, highly technical surveillance systems, gates and fences, making the illegal trade in people an drug smuggling more desperate and causing them to boldly push back.

The Indypendent, New York"Karl W. Hoffman has captured the raw moments along the Arizona-Mexico border that challenge the human tendency to draw invisible lines through the landscape and people's lives. His work is of international significance, from the Sonoran Desert to New York City." Jessica Lee

Yale University Press, London"Living on the Border is a fascinating physical, social and psychological state". Robert Baldock, Editor & Managing Director

Photographer's Forum MagazineAward for Excellence in Photojournalism is granted to Karl W. Hoffman for his photograph of the "Beggar Boy" from the documentary "Living on the Border"

US News and World Report “your photos are awesome” Stephen Rountree Graphics Director, Published in the June 25th 2007 issue

BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS, London, Honors fine art photographer, Karl W. Hoffman for outstanding achievements in photojournalism, January 3, 2007

Tucson Weekly “As an eyewitness to the continuing tragedies, that's where Hoffman brings his camera”. Margaret Regan