The United Nations has declared the US/Mexico border the deadliest land crossing in the world and has labeled it a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of men, women, and children have died crossing this border that spans over 1,900 miles across brutal deserts and impassible mountains with harsh climate conditions year-round. The United States government strategically uses draconian policies here that follow a philosophy of “prevention through deterrence,” which forcefully directs migrants into unforgiving terrain where they wander for days in the elements. These policies are specifically meant to maim and kill. Nature is used here as an executioner by proxy.
In “Geography of Disappearance,” I photograph along the border and go to the exact locations where the bodies of unknown migrants have been recovered using autopsy reports and data collected by humanitarian organizations. I use alternative photographic processes in the darkroom to speak to the complex social and political narratives that run through these landscapes. The hazy, impressionistic, and forceful mark-making embedded in these photographic processes act as a metaphor for the physical and psychological violence that these migrants experienced as they perished.
These sites of death are the direct consequences of the oppressive ideologies, build upon a long legacy of white supremacy, that continue to guide the United States forward into the 21st century. The photographs act as a space for somber remembrance of the deceased and serve as an examination of the cruelty woven into the fabric of this country.