Object Biographies

I first gained interest in this project when I came across Tom Kiefer’s photographic collection of confiscated belongings that once belonged to detained migrants. Kiefer retrieved these items at his time working as a janitor in a Southern detention facility. When detained migrants would arrive at this facility, border agents would strip them of their belongings and categorize them as lethal or non-lethal items. Items classified as lethal would be separated from its person never to be seen again. Kiefer would take items from the lethal pile and take them home. Eventually, Kiefer gathered enough items to organize them into an artistic collage and photographed them. The photographs were both displayed in physical exhibitions across the U.S. and permanently on his personal website. Upon first glance, these collages elicited feelings of distress and made me consider the ways that undocumented migrants are given agency, or lack thereof in the United States. The exhibition also raised concerns over the history of immigration policies and the complex relationship migrants have with border territories. Western institutions that curate exhibitions based on immigration rarely confront the consequences of exhibiting the associated struggles. Kiefer, through his photographs, gave no space for the memory of deportees and revoked any agency they had left. Displaying personal belongings such as bibles with their own personal notes without the consideration of its owner and the memories associated with the item is a failed attempt to represent issues of U.S. migration. La Mochila and the Migrant Object Archive is an attempt to restore the agency of undocumented and deported persons. I address several issues attached to the ethical display of migrant belongings. The object biographies found here give a creative process to restoring object agency.