Hostile Terrain 94, Installation, and Meditative Explorations of the US-Mexico Borderlands

In the fall semester of 2021, we organized and curated the participatory art project Hostile Terrain ‘94 at the University of Alabama. The project, conceived and developed by the Undocumented Migration Project, consists of ∼3,200 toe-tags carrying information of deceased migrants found on the US side of the US-Mexico border in the Sonoran Desert. They produce a map of tremendous death. The project allowed participating institutions to make their own decisions regarding how to coordinate the creation of the material and staging and curation of the final exhibition. Apart from its importance as a way of engaging a public with the often-unseen consequences of US border policy and policing, it is also an experiment in collaborative art making. What kind of experience did we want to structure for those taking part in creating the materials? How were we going to stage the encounter with the finished materials? We discuss organizing the creation of materials, setting up the installation, and the period when the project was open to the public to highlight two elements that were of special importance in the process: the subject position engaged by the project, and the meditative practice proposed by the installation.