The Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit in the DUC contains a toe tag for every dead migrant, commemorating the lives lost attempting to cross the US/Mexico border. (Photo by Holden Hines)

This week in the Danforth University Center, a temporary wall was constructed that showed a portion of the border between the United States and Mexico covered in orange and beige tags. In my time sitting by it this week, it’s proven to be enough to stop some busy Wash. U. students in their tracks. Some do a double take and continue on their way, some take pictures and some spend moments reading a few. I can’t say exactly what attracted their attention to it amidst the bustle of campus life—whether it was the shocking color, the size of the wall, the volume of the tags or simply an interruption in the usual campus environment. For me, no matter how long I sat by it, it was impossible to let fade into the background of my gaze. It demanded to be seen, to be read, to be felt. 

The exhibition, called Hostile Terrain 94, is a participatory work of 3,200 toe tags commemorating those who have died in the Arizona Desert between the mid-1990s and 2019. The tags are geolocated to the exact spot the remains were found in this desert as a result of the “Prevention through deterrence” immigration enforcement strategy that began in 1994. This policy, which is still the primary border enforcement strategy in use today, aimed to deter those crossing the border by cutting off historical points of crossing and forcing migrants to traverse “hostile terrains” which would prevent human movement. 

The exhibition, currently taking place at over 150 host institutions globally, is sponsored and organized by the Undocumented Migrant Project, a nonprofit research-art-education-media collective directed by anthropologist Jason De León. The initial concept of the exhibition was that it would be shown in the weeks preceding the 2020 election, but due to pandemic restrictions, the exhibition was delayed. According to Spanish and Comparative Literature professor Tabea Linhard, one of the primary organizers in making Wash. U. a hosting institution for this project, the process looked very different than what was expected when planning started in 2019.

“I think it kind of proved to us that it can still be done!” Linhard said. “Everything looked a little different than we had expected, but it was still possible.” 

[Last fall, HT94 presented a screening of “Border South,” a documentary about the migrant experience. Read about it here.]

Participants filled out individual toe tags by picking up the materials at Linhard’s home, having materials mailed to them, joining virtual sessions or joining socially-distanced toe-tag-filling events. While it was complicated by the demands of COVID restrictions, the organizers felt the participatory aspect was essential to the process of the exhibition.

“It really, in a metaphorical sense but also in a very real sense, allows you to hold the lives in your hand and allows you to realize that these aren’t just toe tags, they are actually memorializing people who have passed away, whether they are identified people or unidentified people,” explained Mattie Gottbrath, coordinator for International Programming and organizer for Hostile Terrain 94. “That’s very powerful as a memorial but also it’s powerful to recognize more broadly that we hold this issue in our hands. We have the power to do things about this.” 

To Linhard, the participatory aspect also speaks to the nature of activism itself. According to Linhard, “Activism is not something that one person alone can do. What makes the map of Hostile Terrains so aesthetically pleasing, is that you have so many people engaged in this act of mourning and the act of memory and it’s also an act of protest, in many ways.” 

In this exhibition, “community” entailed more than just the Wash. U. bubble. Local artists of the Latinx community were actively involved in the construction and display, with accompanying works by Mee Jey and Javier Torres-Gomez hanging on the opposite side of the installation wall. “That’s an example of how we each have our different talents,” said Gotthard, “but it’s this greater community that’s really passionate about immigration and immigration reform, and how that creates this much larger piece that is really moving to see and to be a part of.” 

The collaboration at the heart of this exhibition is especially powerful in these times, considering the unfortunate need to physically distance from our communities. “Everything about this exhibit is about collaborating,” said Linhard. “You really need a group of people working on this together, thinking about this together; this is not any kind of project that one person alone can do…It’s really about coming together as a community, as challenging as that has been in the last year.” 

As an observer, this piece makes me think about the nature of art and activism. There is mourning and protest reflected in the process of the piece as much as there is in the viewing of it. Though I did not fill out a tag myself, there is a tangibility to their having been filled out. Somebody filled out these tags. Somebody mourned these people. These are not random names and circumstances, but the descriptions of lost lives. Looking at the mass of tags, I can’t help but be swept up by the enormity of that loss. Though the task of change may seem to have a similar enormity, we do have that power.

‘Border South’: A new take on the migrant documentary genre