Hostile Terrain (Interactive Exhibit)
The following notice about the upcoming Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit comes from Dr Anne Galvin, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology in St. John’s College, who was instrumental in bringing this important project to campus.
If you are interested in participating in this project — or just interested in some of the wonderful courses and opportunities in Sociology and Anthropology — reach out to Dr. Galvin directly or let me know and I can put you in touch.
If enough people are interested and available, maybe we can figure out a way to do this together as a class. This is certainly a topic that fits in to our own work on identity and borders and documents.
From Dr Galvin:
St. John’s has been accepted as a host institution for the participatory art installation, Hostile Terrain 94.
Hostile Terrain 94 is a participatory art project sponsored and organized by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a non-profit research-art-education-media collective, directed by anthropologist Jason De León.
The exhibition is composed of ~3,400 handwritten toe tags that represent migrants who have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2019. These tags are geolocated on a wall map of the desert showing the exact locations where remains were found. This installation will simultaneously take place at a large number of institutions, both nationally and globally.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is organizing volunteer hours for participants to handwrite toe tags bearing witness to the deaths of migrants who lost their lives attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.
Participation has also been arranged as an Academic Service-Learning opportunity that can be completed as a classroom component or during designated volunteer hours listed on the attached promotional poster.
There will be a constellation of invited speakers and a documentary film viewing in association with the installation opening, which is scheduled for the second week in March through early April in DAC.
Information for volunteering can be found through scanning QR code on flyer and page links:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScylKMehpNSfcCMH8O3-mAryCHv1CCwoB3I5_OGcjih_Civqg/viewform
https://stjohns.givepulse.com/event/280725
Volunteer dates/times/locations:
Feb 11th from 12noon -5pm in DAC 100 (Food Court Area)
Feb 18th from 12noon-5pm in DAC 128 (Org Lounge)
Feb. 25th from 12noon-5pm in DAC 100 (Food Court Area)
