Nicola Moscelli, Dead End, 2024

Dead End explores the concept of the border in a novel and profound way, taking the US-Mexico border as an example.

Rather than treating it as a mere administrative line, Moscelli sees it as a ‘living tissue’, rich in historical, social and cultural relationships that broaden its understanding.

The book combines road, historical and literary visions, and invites the reader to explore the border from different perspectives. The title Dead End alludes to thousands of roads that end abruptly, symbolising interrupted histories and lost meanings.

This reflection is complemented by textual incursions and insights from authors such as Maceo Montoya, Miriam Ticktin and Steve Bisson, which enrich the reading.

Moscelli’s approach uses images and visual artefacts as ‘fossils of social memory’, introducing a new form of ‘scopic archaeology’, which proposes the border as an interpretative, conceptual and visual device.