The art of Peter Svarzbein (MFA 2011 Photography, Video and Related Media) imitated life to such a degree that his life now imitates his art. As a city councilmember in El Paso, Texas, Svarzbein is overseeing the reintroduction of an electric trolley line that ran through the city and across the border into Juarez, Mexico, from 1902 to 1974. In 2018, the old track—complete with the original streetcars, restored with modern amenities—will reopen for public use on the U.S. side of the border. The $97 million endeavor, funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), is a result, in part, of Svarzbein’s 2011 MFA thesis project at SVA.

Svarzbein had wanted to do a project that blurred the lines of conceptual, fine and performance art. He also wanted to express his identity as a border resident. The light went on in 2010, when a Google search yielded an image of the defunct streetcars. Svarzbein, an El Paso native, had never heard about them before and was intrigued. Employing his skills as an editorial and commercial photographer, he created an advertising campaign to promote a fictional El Paso-Juarez streetcar line, with collateral featuring a character named Alex, the trolley’s conductor and “the border’s newest hero.”

On trips to El Paso during his thesis year, Svarzbein wheat-pasted his trolley posters onto walls and hosted pop-up events to build faux awareness. After graduation, he moved back to El Paso to turn make-believe into reality. He began collecting signatures to add a real trolley initiative on a 2012 bond measure. Though unsuccessful, his efforts caught the attention of TxDOT, which included the project in a $2.2 billion multimodal transportation package.

Svarzbein continued to invest his creative equity in El Paso. He served on a board to reimagine the city’s historic San Jacinto Plaza and he began teaching at the local outpost of the Texas Tech University College of Architecture. Inspired by his community, Svarzbein ran for and won a city council seat in 2015. He is learning how to navigate bureaucracy and plans to run again in 2019. After all, he has business to finish: reconnecting the line all the way to Juarez and destigmatizing the act of border crossing.

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