Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings

Blending documentary and fine art photography, Tom Kiefer photographs objects that once belonged to migrants and were seized and discarded by United States border officials in southern Arizona. “Pertenencias: Recuperando lo sagrado en objetos fronterizos / Belongings: Recovering the Sacred in Objects from the Border” considers the objects photographed by Kiefer as testaments to overlooked stories of hope, faith, devotion, and survival. The people who carried these items are bodily absent, but their stories are encoded in the objects, challenging us to examine our assumptions about what—and whom—we consider “sacred.” The exhibition invites reflection on what it means to possess and what it means to lose, and what it means to belong: how we define who is included and who is excluded, and how those boundaries are enforced.

Exhibition texts are available in both English and Spanish.

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