STATE OF EXCEPTION
The exhibition State of Exception, originally installed at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery in 2013, represents the collaboration between artist/photographer Richard Barnes, artist/curator Amanda Krugliak, and U-M anthropologist Jason De León, considering how best to curate objects from De León’s Undocumented Migration Project.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
STATE OF EXCEPTION
FEBRUARY 7 – MAY 4, 2014
The exhibition State of Exception, originally installed at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery in 2013, represents the collaboration between artist/photographer Richard Barnes, artist/curator Amanda Krugliak, and U-M anthropologist Jason De León, considering how best to curate objects from De León’s Undocumented Migration Project. The exhibition presents backpacks, water bottles, border restraints and other objects left behind by undocumented migrants on their journey into the U.S., and audio interviews from migrants relaying their own perspectives and experiences, and their relationships to these objects. There are also video and photographs shot by Richard Barnes on location along the U.S. Mexico border.
The first serious curation of De León’s research, Barnes and Krugliak approach the exhibition conceptually, presenting this human experience always within the frame of Jason’s research and methodology and informed by the perspectives and fieldwork carried out by De León and his crew. State of Exception conveys the complexity and ambiguity of these found objects, and what they may or may not have revealed in terms of transition, humanity, commerce, culture, violence, and accountability.