“In looking through the collection, I was interested in boundaries, including political bo

“In looking through the collection, I was interested in boundaries, including political boundaries, and the kinds of practical and theoretical problems they bring up…For a good 50 years after the U.S.-Mexico boundary was drawn, they had to redraw the line every three years and set markers along it, though now it’s pretty clearly delineated and militarized. So, it’s really easy to draw the line but really complicated to make it mean something.”

Read more from Rosten Woo, one of our 2019 #5atTheH artists, as he examines ideas of perfection through the lens of Thomas More’s “Utopia,” early utopian settlements in California, and drawings from an expedition marking the U.S.-Mexico border.

One of Woo’s contribution’s to the upcoming /five exhibition, “Utopia In Out Over Through,” consists of five audio tours that bridge The Huntington’s garden and gallery and focus on the archive of historian Robert Hine. Rosten’s audio tour takes listeners through stories from Hine’s research: to the U.S.-Mexico border; to Kaweah Colony, a utopian commune in Northern California; and into the Chinese Garden.