‘The Neighborhood’ Comes to Life : Art: Seventeen women artists and writers create a powerful and disturbing look at the realities of border living.

SAN DIEGO â€”  A tough, contemporary centerpiece stands amid delicate, traditional tissue-paper cutouts of the Virgin at the entrance to Centro Cultural de la Raza’s current show. The large painted canvas in the center bears the same general shape as the holy images on either side, but the woman portrayed is different, profane, not sacred. She is a young Mexican or Chicana in jeans, T-shirt and tennis shoes, a machine gun strapped across her shoulder.

Startling and poignant, the presence of the young woman announces that times have changed, that the face of innocence must now wear a weapon of war, that the defense of values and beliefs now calls for tough, even violent response.

The exhibit, “La Vecindad/The Neighborhood� (through Dec. 9), abounds with disarming and touching images, collaboratively produced by a group of 17 women from the San Diego-Tijuana region who call themselves Las Comadres. Like the annual “Border Realities� shows staged by the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo at the Centro, the current exhibit slices through the layers of political, personal, social and historical realities that define the region around the U.S.-Mexico border. “La Vecindad� feels ambitious, yet personal; its messages are often crudely expressed, but they are nearly always provocative.

Injustices, both personal and historical, private and public, occur too frequently in the “neighborhood� that Las Comadres call their home. The inequities began when the native Indian and Mexican populations were pushed aside in the name of Anglo-European conquest and greed, and they continue through today in equally punishing forms. An accordion-fold book in the show recounts the history of the situation in a brief, mythic poem, describing how “Silence� invaded and overtook the native “Songmakers.�

A second accordion-fold work, this one mounted on the wall, gives glimpses of the current confrontations between Anglo and Mexican populations. Irregularly shaped windows cut out of black paper reveal photographs of people holding torches and signs defending the rights of American citizens, as opposed to those of illegal aliens. Another wedge-shaped image shows what appears to be a migrant worker speaking to a potential employer through his truck window. A newspaper box in the foreground acts as caption to the image with its identifying label, “USA TODAY.�

A reading room with books and folders of border-related articles makes clear the educational intent of the show, but knowledge and insight enter here as much through the eyes and ears as through the mind. Questions resonate throughout the show, both through potent imagery and in the form of words--�Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?�

Among the most powerful visual experiences in the show is that which occurs when standing before an installation that pairs a segment of chain-link fence with a painted folding screen. The fence has a rectangular opening, through which one can see the screen and one’s face reflected on a mirror mounted on the screen. The image painted on the screen, a large pink lozenge shape surrounded by wavy tendrils and golden light, suggests female genitalia.

The fence and the screen together create a metaphor for birth and transition; standing on one side of the fence, the viewer’s image appears on the other. The impending danger for all who enter life--and more to the point here, all who cross the border--is symbolized by a saw blade that has already cut through the top of the screen and sits poised above the mirror, above the viewer’s reflection.

Not all of the banners, paintings, photographs, texts and videos included in “La Vecindad� have the concentrated energy of this installation, but most convey the sense of danger, fear, pride and determination that governs this border neighborhood of ours. An intense desire to teach and to inspire change--toward a society of “joy without borders�--acts as the glue that holds these 17 artists and writers together and that motivates them to engage in social activism of several varieties, from demonstrations to exhibitions.

Las Comadres will present a performance, “Border Boda,� on Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. in the gallery, using part of the exhibit as a set. Members of the group include Kirsten Aaboe, Yareli Arizmendi, Carmela Castrejon, Frances Charteris, Eloise de Leon, Maria Erana, Laura Esparza, Emily Hicks, Berta Jottar, Maria Kristina, Aida Mancillas, Anna O’Cain, Graciela Ovejero, Ruth Wallen, Margie Waller, Rocio Weiss and Cindy Zimmerman.