Hostile Terrain is an exhibition utilizing material drawn from the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a long-term research, education and art collective directed by Jason De León. Since 2009, the UMP has employed a combination of archaeological, forensic, ethnographic, archival, and visual approaches to document and understand clandestine migration between Latin America and the United States. This includes long-term ethnographic research in migrant shelters and safe houses across Mexico, archaeological surveys in the Sonoran Desert to examine and collect what border crossers leave behind, and experimental forensic work to record what happens to the bodies of those who perish while in route. A collaboration between De León, curator and artist Lucy Cahill, and founding UMP photographer Michael Wells, this multi-media installation is focused on various sensory engagements with the world of clandestine migration.
Complex political, economic, and environmental crisis fueling global migration cannot be solved with a “great, great wall.” For almost twenty five years, the enforcement of the official U.S. border policy known as “Prevention Through Deterrence” has led to the death of thousands and had failed to stop migration. Hostile Terrain seeks to illuminate this horrific reality while also highlighting the discomfort that comes with witnessing the suffering of others and being left with many questions and few answers.
Michael Wells. Chilpan, Mexico, 2017. Inkjet print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Hostile Terrain by Lucy Cahill + Jason De León + Michael Wells was proposed by Kostis Kourelis, Associate Professor of Art History and Department Chair of Art and Art History at Franklin & Marshall College. Funding support has been provided in part by the Richard C. von Hess Foundation Collaborative Residency in Art History.
Michael Wells. Southern Arizona, 2010. Chromogenic print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“I will build a great wall—and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me—and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” – Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States
Around 18% (351 miles) of the 1,954 miles that make up the border between the U.S. and Mexico currently has a structure resembling a wall with significant fencing and security measures clustering in and around urban ports-of-entry. On the outskirts of those urban zones, the walls and high-tech surveillance cameras abruptly vanish and the terrain turns remote, depopulated, rugged, and unsupervised.
Michael Wells. Selva, 2018. Chromogenic print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
This discrepancy in security infrastructure between populated areas and uninhabited expanses of wilderness is not just a matter of cost or construction constraints but part of a larger security plan. Leaving vast portions of the border relatively open to undocumented migration is part of a Border Patrol strategy called Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD).
Michael Wells. Baboquivari, 2012. Chromogenic print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Initiated in 1994, the logic underlying PTD is that by placing intensive security measures (e.g., high fencing, motion sensor cameras, field agents) in and around urban ports of entry where “illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement.”
Michael Wells. Safe House, 2017. Inkjet print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
For almost two decades, this strategy has intentionally funneled over five million migrants towards the Sonoran Desert of Arizona where people seeking illegal entry will walk for long distances (e.g., upwards of 70 miles) while simultaneously negotiating a barren landscape characterized by extreme weather, venomous animals, and other dangers. As of 2017, at least 3,199 people have lost their lives on U.S. soil while moving across this “hostile terrain.”
Jason De León. Pakal Na, Mexico, 2016. Inkjet print on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Hostile Terrain 2, 2012–2018. Video triptych. Cell phone videos by Wizard and Chimbo. Arizona drone footage and forensic experiment footage by Undocumented Migration Project. Video triptych modified for online exhibition.
Left Behind, 2018. Various media. Migrant backpacks containing personal possessions.
Jason De León is a Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Chicana, Chicano, and Central American Studies at UCLA. He directs the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a long-term anthropological study of clandestine migration between Mexico and the United States. De León is the author of the award-winning book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail (featuring photos by Michael Wells) and a 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
Michael Wells has served as primary photographer for the Undocumented Migration Project since its inception in 2009. He has photographed the project’s ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork in Arizona, New York, Mexico, and Ecuador. A Los Angeles-based photographer, he has created photography projects on post-Katrina New Orleans, the physicality of the U.S.–Mexico border in Arizona and California, and Latino communities in the American South.
Lucy Cahill is a Detroit-based visual artist with a background in curation and art history. She is interested in methods of curation that shape the larger conversation about issues in the current political landscape, and bear witness to underrepresented issues and populations. Her personal work uses an illustrative approach to explore ideas of femininity and feminism, power and the body.
Photographs by Deb Grove, F&M Staff Photographer; Adriana Moran Garcia '20, Museum Social Media Aide; and Abigail Dotterer '22, Museum Attendant. Design by Janie Kreines, Curator of Academic Affairs & Community Engagement, and Lexi Breinich '13, Art Museum Assistant. All artwork courtesy of the artists.