Hostile Terrain 94

Visit Hostile Terrain 94 at the Corcoran

September 13, 2021 - February 25, 2022
Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Flagg Rotunda
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design
500 17th Street NW

This exhibition is open only to the GW community (students, staff and faculty). Use your GWID card at E Street or New York Avenue to enter.

About the Exhibition

The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design is excited to host Hostile Terrain 94 (HT94), 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 exhibit was built through community participation, with toe tags representing lives lost on a map of the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, from August 25, 2020 to February 1, 2021. Visitors in the GW community (students, faculty and staff) are welcome to visit the work in the Flagg Building's Rotunda in the fall of 2021, located at 500 17th Street NW, during business hours.

The exhibition is composed of ~3,200 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 is simultaneously taking place at a large number of institutions, both nationally and globally in 2020 and 2021.

We invite you to participate and explore the rich materials, such as reading lists, audio files and playlists, and view past virtual events connected to this exhibit. You can also watch the exhibit go up in Corcoran's Rotunda in the video below.

Toe tags

Check back on this website to learn how to help with toe tags while practicing COVID-19 social distancing and safety protocols.

We have packets of tags that can be requested by staff, faculty, students, and community members for pick-up and drop-off by appointment.

A Moment of Global Remembrance

During this time of social distancing caused by COVID-19, the Undocumented Migration Project is seeking ways to safely engage with those who are committed to keeping remembering the thousands of people who have died and disappeared along the U.S./Mexico border in search of a better life. They are asking people to film themselves reading the name of a person who has died crossing the U.S./Mexico border in Southern Arizona, along with the details of that person’s death.

Instructions to participate in A Global Day of Remembrance

Classroom and Community Resources

Listen now to audio stories from the project: