welcome
we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
— Oscar Wilde
She looks north, and sometimes the stars disappear, but she maintains her faith, knowing that they only hide behind the dark clouds of circumstance.
And so, her journey begins.
2017: I begin to take note of the affairs unfolding across the world, as one topic grabs my eye: the border. One evening at the family dinner table, I casually remark, “So do we actually know what’s happening at the border, or are we just taking the press’s word for it?”
I begin to feel myself contained in a state of haziness, quickly realizing that my only understanding of the border stems from the media, which too often propagates a warped perspective. It itches at me that so many others must feel the same way–but who actually has witnessed the reality?
Hoping to glimpse the truth with my own eyes, I plan a short weekend visit to Brownsville, Texas; as I begin speaking to residents, immigrants, and agents, the border intrigues me even more, and this weekend visit quickly evolves into a 1900-mile journey along the US-Mexico border’s entirety.
Traveling west, I find myself driving up an endlessly winding mountain road, rewarded at the plateau with a majestic nightscape of a sprawling border city. The city sleeps, but feels curiously alive, as if resting under a blanket of hope and individuality.
There, I notice her. Surrounded by rusty metal and a variety of dangling snacks, she works a food truck at the edge of the overlook.
As she swims across the Río Grande, she is afraid – not of the present, but of the future. She fears the kind of life she may lead but moves forward, because behind her is a maelstrom of violence.
During the journey, she is raped, becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a baby boy. She is just a teenager. Nonetheless, she looks to the stars.
Over the next several years, she endures the threat of being exposed as undocumented, jumping from nursing, waitressing, and knitting, eventually opening her food truck on the bluff.
Alone, she raises her son, who goes on to serve in the U.S. Army.
The day I met her, I began to grasp a fundamental truth: we are nothing without human connection: we are nothing without stories.
Inspired by my new perspective on life, I set my sights on an ambitious goal: to continue this journey all over the world in an impassioned search for these stories. I call this goal the Beyond Borders Project. As I met Palestinian children, Korean fighters, and Iraqi refugees, each inspiring and heartbreaking story I collected drove me to explore further and fight my fear of the unknown. Before I knew it, I had captured tens of thousands of photos and chronicled the heartaches of seven world borders.
At the end of the day, these refugees, immigrants, agents, and residents are real. Real people, real life, real stories, to which I’m naturally drawn. I learn through direct observation and action, which translate to the ability to empathize and create open and uncomfortable conversations with those around me.
My travels have helped me to recognize that the core of my being is curiosity: in 2021, in Iraqi Kurdistan, I visited a Yezidi refugee camp of thousands, where a fire had broken out and burned 400 shelters to the ground, displacing innumerable asylum seekers. I found myself standing there, staring over the desolate landscape of charred tent foundations, ashes caking each square inch, feeling an emptiness I could only fill through storytelling.
Countless “curiosities” later, I’ve been molded into the man I am today. A photojournalist. A public speaker. A storyteller.
This is my mark.
2017: She offers to show an overeager 13 year-old-boy from Dallas the truth of the border barrio. She shares her story. She teaches him to look to the stars.
She wins his heart.
Unless my design skills have somehow failed me miserably and my name wasn’t in the top left of your screen, then by now you know I’m Ekansh Tambe—a senior at St. Mark’s School of Texas.
I’m an artist. The way that I see the world around me has been shaped by the way I’ve intertwined my life’s story with art. It just so happens that I define art a little differently than everyone else. The way I see it, art is an extension of one’s being—a bridge between conception and propagation, a compromise between interpretation and Truth. If I take this to be true, then is my pursuit of the Truth not art? Is my collection of stories across the world not art? Is my portrayal—whether through words or images—of the connection between myself and another human being not art?
Thus, I choose to define my love for journalism as an extension of my love for storytelling, my chosen art form. My ability as a journalist reflects my persistent drive to tell the stories of others and expand others’ perspectives by facilitating thoughtful discourse with my reporting.
Conversing with people who have a story to tell is like a breath of fresh air for me: I’m never going to get tired of the feeling of trust that people place in me when they share what makes them them. To me, this is the ultimate allure of journalism: breaking down borders between people. Nothing epitomizes this more than my Beyond Borders project.
In addition to my Beyond Borders work, I’m the St. Mark’s Publications Photography Editor and the Backpage Editor for the ReMarker. I’ve been on the photography staff of the Marksmen yearbook and ReMarker newspaper since middle school, or for the last five years or so. Additionally, I’ve written editorial pieces for the ReMarker and helped plan out topics that the ReMarker will be covering each cycle. Subsequent sections will explain the depth of my journalism roles for St. Mark’s.
Through my journalism, I break the borders of what it means to call myself an artist, journalist, and storyteller. I break down the borders between places, cultures, and lifestyles, identifying what divides us in order to break that down too. In essence, I’m always pushing the boundaries of concept and capability.