--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: “Borders,” M.I.A. image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Dec 07, 2015 # “Borders,” M.I.A. by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  M.I.A. making art inspired by the ongoing refugee and migrant crisis has done what M.I.A. releases typically do: polarize. Yet as the song’s “What’s up with that?” refrain suggests, the former refugee herself is happy just to provoke questions, even if she’s sometimes the target of them. Directed by M.I.A. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4139204/borders-m-i-a/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4139204/borders-m-i-a/"},"headline":"“Borders,” M.I.A.","datePublished":"2015-12-07T20:52:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:12:52.438Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4139204/borders-m-i-a/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4139204/borders-m-i-a/","name":"“Borders,” M.I.A."}}]}] ```