September 28th, 2021 by Lydia Lagarde
McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies & Associate Professor of Anthropology Simone Delerme’s Movement and Migration focus of the Future of the South Initiative continues on the UM campus with a participatory exhibit coming to Lamar Hall.
Wet paint signs adorn the walls of Lamar Hall in preparation of the installation of the Hostile Terrain 94 Exhibit. Photo courtesy of Jeff Jackson/ Department of Sociology and Anthropology
The Hostile Terrain 94 Exhibit, a part of the Undocumented Migration Project, will culminate on October 15th, however students, faculty, staff, and community members are asked to participate in interpretive sessions in which they will “construct” the exhibit itself leading up to the unveiling.
Attendants of the interpretive sessions will be asked to fill out toe tags that represent each person who has died in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. These toe tags, placed on a wall map in the same location that the remains were found, make up the Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit. Participants are asked to reflect on each and every life lost at the southern border and the inhumane crisis that demands change and call to action. “We are hoping for individuals to emotionally connect with the information being conveyed on the tags, to memorialize and stand in solidarity with these lost lives, and to take part in the greater migration conversation,” says the Undocumented Migration Project team.
The interpretive sessions will be held in the Anthropology Lab (Lamar Hall 114), on September, 28th from 3-5PM and September 29th from 1-3PM, and in the afternoon of September 30th. More interpretive sessions will be announced soon.
Participants of interpretive sessions will work to construct the exhibit, to be revealed October 15th. Submitted photo
The Hostile Terrain 94 Exhibit will be accompanied by a lecture by the exhibit’s executive director, Jason De Léon, titled “The Land of Open Graves: Understanding the Current Politics of Migrant Life and Death along the U.S./Mexico Border,” in which he discusses the inherent political violence that is tied to the decomposition of the bodies of deceased migrants. This lecture will take place on September 30th at 4pm in Nutt Auditorium.