Transcending
Perception
Transcending Perception is a series of public sculptures by Josemar Gonzalez and Diana Cervera, selected for Installations at the Station at San Diego’s former Naval Training Center. The sculptures were built between the borderlands of San Diego and Tijuana. Content was generated through participatory workshops with local poets, community leaders, and multidisciplinary artists, in collaboration with The AjA Project. The project has run in two iterations, in 2022 and again in 2024–2025, with participants from the first round nominating those who came next.
Standing nine feet tall and lighting up at sunset, these portals serve as an entry point to stories of migration, community, and identity. As the audience walks through the doors and reads the stories, they are invited to think about which doors they have opened and which they have closed.
Role
Artist, Facilitator
Mediumn
Metal, Acrilic Photo Print, Industrial Solar Panels
Year
2022, 2024 - 2026
Venue
Liberty Station, San Diego
From political cartoons to early cinema, dominant media streams have historically played a central role in crafting normalized perceptions about people and communities of color within the American imagination, and in informing who is considered part of the imagined America and who is deemed other. Transcending Perception was created with the intention of returning the gaze on both current and historical representations of those who are often excluded or misrepresented in dominant media.
The images and stories on the doors center the faces and voices of the collaborating artists and the communities they represent, creating a monument of love and solidarity among them.
2022 Artists
FAMO MUSA
DJ KUTTIN KANDI
ALONDRA RZ
JEFF VALENZUELA
KHALIL
2025 Artists
YOSIMAR
ELI
TOMAS
STEVENSON
FAMO & SISTERS
FRANCISCO
WOMEN FROM BORDERLINE CRSIS CENTER
