“At the end of the day, they’re just people like you and me.”

EKANSH TAMBE is a border photographer. Since the age of 12, he has documented nuanced perspectives along the world’s most contentious borders: US-Mexico, the Korean DMZ, Israel-Palestine, Spain-Morocco, the Berlin Wall, Colombia-Venezuela, and now, the “invisible border” of COVID-19.

We sat down backstage after his inspiring talk at the STORY 2019 conference in Nashville for a quick Chrysalis Convo on empathy, physical vs. mental borders, and his next dream stop (Antarctica!). We also get to hear from his sister Ashna against the joyful background noise of community (which I’m excited to experience virtually at STORY 2020 this week!).

You can follow Ekansh’s timely work on his website and Instagram (@ekt_photos). His book The Great Divide, a visual journey across the US-Mexico border, is also now available.

Transcript (08:25 min)

CC: What’s your name? 

ET: Ekansh Tambe.

CC: Where are we, and why are we here?

ET: So we’re in Nashville, Tennessee, at STORY 2019. It’s been an amazing conference. People telling their stories, other people’s stories, talking about space in between old and new, stuff that has been and will be. It’s been incredible. It’s been amazing.

CC: Is there anything that’s hit you that has felt old (“oh, I know that”)? Then my next question is, what has been new?

ET: Well, Apollo [Robbins] talked about perception, the way people perceive things and why they perceive things that way. I thought was really cool. He had one really powerful line: “It’s not what you look at, but what you see.”  I felt like I’ve explored that quite a bit, so I felt I could relate to that. That was really powerful.

CC: When you are interviewing people yourself, what do you see?

ET: What do I see? I see them as just people, you know? In the middle of the United States, you don’t think of them as people who are just like you and me. They are somehow different because they live at the border. Because they have something to do with the crisis that’s talked about all over the world. But at the end of the day, they’re just people like you and me. The agents, the immigrants, the residents, everybody who’s there. They’re just like you and me. 

CC: You shared many stories with us. Is there one that really changed you or broke you down?

ET: Definitely. The very last one I shared, I think I spent the most time on it. There was one lady I met along the US-Mexico border who shared her story with me. She had crossed the border illegally many decades ago, 50-60 years ago in her early 20s. She came to the US. She worked extremely hard. Did very, very odd jobs and stuff. Tried to scrape together a living for herself and her son that she was raising alone. Her son, the son of an illegal immigrant – he went on to serve in the US army. She was so inspired by our journey, so she voluntarily gives us a 4-hour tour of her town until midnight. She took us to places we otherwise wouldn’t have dared to go. I mean, it was really incredible. 

CC: Wow. When you say “us,” this is your whole family.

ET: My family, yeah, yeah.

CC: How has doing this thing together shaped your conversations with each other as a family?

ET: Well, now we all know the facts, right? It’s not just me. It’s all of us. It's something that we all did. So I guess it brought us together in some way.

CC: Ashna, if you want to weigh in… how has it been for you, coming along?

AT: It’s been really cool seeing how he does all this. He was a really quiet, shy person usually. He would talk to the border patrol people for 15 minutes and just get to know them really well. It was really cool for me to see that he took a step to do this, then got into it and talked to all these people. 

CC: It takes a lot of courage.

AT: Yeah, it does! And then talking at the TEDx really surprised me. And this STORY thing, and how he could stand up there in front of so many people and talk to them. It was really cool. 

CC: You could too, right? It’s literally like, if you can, what’s stopping anyone really from just going and doing it? Thanks for sharing. When you’re about to go up to someone, at border patrol for example, what is your posture, your mindset, when you’re going in, about to start the conversation and ask questions?

ET:: Me and my sister always get out of the car first, and then my parents get out. So they see we’re not a threat or anything. Then you just walk up and just talk to them. Many of them haven’t had– one border patrol agent, he hadn’t had a US citizen stop by and say hi to him in the 20 years he’d been in service. I mean, that’s insane.

CC: What scares you about this adventure you’re on?

ET: What scares me? Well, at first I was scared of approaching people. Talking to them. Just 'cause I didn’t know how to. But then as I did it more, I realized it was just people, and it wasn’t that hard to talk to them. That was something that scared me at first, but eventually I got over because I realized it was irrational. And I talk to them, let them get to know me, and I get to know them. You show them that you’re interested in what they’ve gone through. Then you can empathize with them, and then you just get to know them.

CC: Can you remind me the list of borders or places you’ve visited?

ET: Yeah, so I did US-Mexico border, then the Korean DMZ, then Israel-Palestine, then the Berlin Wall, then Spain and Morocco, then I did Colombia and Venezuela.

CC: We can be here for hours. Tell me about Colombia and Venezuela.

ET: Okay so Colombia is a beautiful country. I visited all these places, these cites where they had been centers for a ton of gang violence, but they were trying to reform and build infrastructure and put new emphasis on art, creation, and creativity. That was really amazing. 

CC: When did you go to Colombia?

ET: This summer.

CC: This past summer? Were you in Medellin? 

ET: I was. That was one of the cities.

CC: So I was there in 2014. I spent the whole summer working with artists there doing that in the first place. Where is the community at now?

ET: It’s amazing! We spent a full day there just wandering. It’s amazing. Comuna 13 – you saw the staircase, the escalator, right? There was no more "if you cross a border, then you can die" type of stuff. I mean, they’re reforming it. It was incredible to hear that from the tour guide, and it was completely safe. You could see there were tourists everywhere. The whole city, the whole comuna was prospering because of tourists. They were so receptive. It was amazing.

CC: How do you plan, if you plan, these trips?

ET: Beforehand, before going, I just chalk out major cities I want to hit, spend a couple days in, stop the night in, or something like that. Maybe some places along the way that touch right up the border I want to hit. But then A lot of it is just along the way. If I see a little dirt road that hits the fence – it wasn’t on Google Maps before, then I was just like, alright, let’s turn around and go right here.

CC: The unmapped part, the uncharted part.

ET: Yeah, a lot of it was just seeing where I was and where I could go.

CC: What about language?

ET: Well, I took Spanish in school, so I could communicate with people a good amount at the US-Mexico border, at the Spain-Morocco border, at the Colombia-Venezuela border. That actually helped a lot. It’s my sixth year learning Spanish in school.

CC: Is there anything that you’re wrestling or sitting with, or inspired by right now?

ET: Hmm… I'd say there are always more places to go. There’s no specific thing. There’s always another border to visit. There’s always another problem to solve. There’s always going to be another problem because it’s a human problem, right? For example, I met a lady earlier today in my exhibit, and she said, "I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this before, but I’ve been exploring some borders, like ocean borders. For example, a small island country has 200 square miles of ocean that’s their territory, but as soon as their island goes underwater, they lose all that. Then the big giants take dibs on that.” I’d never thought of that before. So there’s always going to be another thing to explore, another mental border, you know? 

CC: When one disappears or changes when it’s redrawn… 

ET: When it’s redrawn, of course.

CC: How do you define a border?

ET: I’d say it's less geographic. It’s more about the people, the divide between people. 

CC: Which could be anything, like a mental one.

ET: Yeah exactly. My point exactly. There’s an unlimited amount of borders, whether it’s a mental block, a geographic block, or a fence or a wall. Something that’s just understood by people to exist. I‘ve only explored world borders. I haven’t really dabbled in much else. 

CC: Where are you headed next after this conference?

ET: Antarctica. I think it would be cool to explore a place with no borders. That was kind of the thought process behind it. 

CC: How are you planning that trip?

ET: I haven’t started. It’s going to be at least a year or so out. It’s just an idea right now. It’s just a formless idea that hasn’t come to action yet. 

CC: That’s staying really open. Is there anything else you would possibly like to add?

ET: Follow your passion. It doesn’t have to necessarily be borders. Just anything you’re passionate about. Follow it. 

CC: Thank you.

ET: Absolutely.