The 3,200 toe tags of Hostile Terrain 94 aim to “rehumanize” migrants who have died while crossing the Sonoran Desert

Sanchita Balachandran, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, who organized the Hopkins exhibition together with Alessandro Angelini, an assistant professor of anthropology, says the effort to create and install the exhibit made a sometimes abstract issue feel concrete to those who took part. The ongoing crisis at the border “can feel like it’s not really happening anywhere,” says Balachandran, herself a child of immigrants. “The tactile way you can participate in this project is a rare thing in museum practice. Usually people consume an exhibition—they aren’t a part of it.” -Ashley Stimpson, JHU HUB