Caballero named CFA outstanding graduate student
By Michael Chesnick. May 11, 2026Growing up in Mexico City, Andrés Caballero made sure to cherish dinnertime with his parents and two older brothers — no matter how busy or tired they all might be.
“It was the one moment we shared each day,” he said. “For me, and for many families, the dining room is a cornerstone of identity. It’s the space where conversations unfold, stories are told, and memories take root.”
Those memories not only helped shape Caballero as an artist, photographer and researcher, they also became the inspiration for his current MFA Thesis Exhibition installation, “IN PLACE,” at the University of Arizona School of Art. Since 2023, the Fulbright student has participated in 23 exhibitions and screening placements, and secured 21 grants, fellowships and awards.
And his latest honor might be the most impressive: the overall Outstanding Graduate student for the College of Fine Arts. Caballero will be honored May 17 at the 2026 CFA Spring Graduation Convocation in Centennial Hall at 2 p.m.
“Andrés exemplifies the CFA criteria through an uncommon combination of rigorous, research-driven creative work, sustained academic excellence, demonstrated leadership and consistent public-facing community engagement,” Regents Professor Sama Alshaibi said in her nominating letter on behalf of the school’s Photography, Video & Imaging (PVI) faculty.
“Grounded in the U.S./Mexico borderlands, his work examines how computational systems reshape borders, domestic space, and memory, with disproportionate consequences for marginalized communities,” she said.
Border families contribute to MFA project
Caballero’s MFA installation, “IN PLACE,” on view at the University of Arizona Museum of Art until May 16, reconstructs a Mexican family’s dining room from the borderlands. As a video of a participating family re-enacting oral histories and everyday domestic gestures plays, a real-time computer vision system quietly tracks the audience’s movement, shifting the room from refuge to a monitored space.
“These everyday scenes, such as sharing a meal, offer a powerful entry point for empathy,” Caballero said. “They reflect the human need for community, stability and care. In doing so, the work reclaims visibility for those often rendered invisible, reminding us that migration is not only about crossing borders, but also about preserving dignity, connection and a sense of place.”
He worked with five families, four from Douglas and one from Tucson, with much of his design work based on continuous visits and conversations, in addition to personal objects they contributed for his final installation.
“This process included the collection of oral histories, which culminated in recorded reenactments of personal memories. These recordings are what the audience sees on one of the screens,” Caballero said. “The relationships I built and the experiences I had during this process remain some of the most meaningful moments of my time here.”
Bringing visibility to school
As far as “meaningful moments,” Caballero has had many during his three years at the School of Art:
Academic: In addition to his Fulbright scholarship and a 3.94 GPA, his other major distinctions include the Marcia Grand Centennial Sculpture Award, the Border Arts Corridor (BAC) Fellowship; the Mellon Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship from the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry; and a Tinker Field Research Grant. He also became the first School of Art MFA student to receive a Roots for Resilience Fellowship from the University of Arizona’s Data Science Institute, an honor typically held by PhD candidates.
Creative activity: His “Borderlands Masks” solo exhibition at the school’s Lionel Rombach Gallery explored the stories of the lucha libre community along the US-Mexico border. But his student work reached well beyond the usual graduate exhibition circuit, including major cultural and civic venues such as the Tucson Museum of Art (“Ya Hecho: Readymade in the Borderlands”), the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, the 17 Days Video Series at Western Michigan University, and presentations in Guadalajara and Mexico City, demonstrating professional traction and cross-border visibility.
Leadership: Caballero served on the Latin American Art Patrons board and the Sienna Collective, supporting students of color in the arts, and was active in the school’s Riso Club. He also created a professional opportunity for five PVI graduate students by securing a grant from the Graduate and Professional Student Council to support attendance at the Society for Photographic Education 2025 National Conference. He shared advanced technical knowledge through workshops and invited presentations such as “Computer Vision & Vibe Coding,” hosted at the School of Art. He excelled as a graduate teaching assistant, including lab sessions for Intro to Photographic Practices, and as a graduate research assistant to Alshaibi and Associate Dean David Taylor, and as a digital production assistant in the U of A Libraries’ Digitization Services for Special Collections.
Community Outreach: Caballero has hosted public-facing workshops and invited presentations, including the “Documenting the Desert” workshop (Douglas, Arizona), the Computer Vision & Vibe Coding workshop (VARS, Tucson), and an invited presentation for the Tinker Field Symposium (Kiva Theater, Tucson). He also has supported public screenings and events that brought university-linked creative research into civic, binational and community spaces, including projects and presentations at venues such as the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson and community arts sites in the borderlands.
“He brings visibility to the program through media coverage and public storytelling, extending the reach of student research and strengthening the public profile of the School of Art,” Alshaibi said.
MFA project continues his focus on community
In his research, Caballero said he seeks a bilateral and collaborative approach, “where everyone is an active participant in the construction of a border counter-narrative.”
“My goal is to continue strengthening these community ties to generate art that serves as a tool for agency in the face of increasing systems of control,” he said.
As part of his Centennial Prize award, Caballero plans to make his MFA “IN PLACE” installation a traveling exhibition shown in different cities throughout the borderlands, prioritizing public, non-institutional spaces. He’s in the final stages of discussion to show it at a historic public venue in Douglas. “This would be a special location for me because most of the participants from this project live in the area, so I am imagining it as a community pop-up event,” he said.
In addition, Caballero hopes to gather enough documentation to build a comprehensive website for “IN PLACE.” He said: “Beyond serving as a living digital archive, the site will allow the project to reach a wider audience,” he said. “It also becomes a public, open-access resource that exists beyond the institutional walls.”
Looking back and ahead
Caballero credits Professors Alshaibi, Martina Shenal, Taylor and Marcos Serafim — and his Photo, Video & Imaging MFA cohort — for helping him achieve his goals. His first class, Experimental Photographic Techniques with Shenal, set the tone.
“I was delayed a week due to some visa issues, so my first introduction to them was by having my face projected into a huge wall while I could barely see anybody,” Caballero said. “After I finally arrived, I felt welcomed right away and quickly bonded with everyone. At that point, I was experimenting freely, just learning and following my curiosity. That lack of pressure made the experience feel completely liberating.”
He added: “I still remember the time spent in the darkroom with my peers; working through ideas, talking about their processes, and trying to figure out what I wanted to say with my own work. Those moments became meaningful throughout the program.”
As for his career aspirations, Caballero plans to return to Mexico City at some point and apply to PhD programs in Studio Art, both in the United States and internationally. “My research is currently focused on new media and experimental visual arts, and I plan to continue developing projects in this field while eventually teaching courses related to these areas in my country,” he said.
“My goal is to continue working as a full-time artist while remaining engaged in an academic environment,” Caballero said.
More stories
