As massive migratory populations, Indigenous peoples have shared land and knowledge long before European contact, certainly before the notion of militarized borders. The US borders shared with Mexico, Canada, and Russia are straddled by the homelands of over 40 Indigenous Nations, twelve of which have reservations that either touch or are within a mile of the Canadian or Mexican border. Many more have relationships—including kinship ties—that straddle these international boundaries. Geopolitical borders impose arbitrary divisions, interrupt Indigenous sovereignty, disconnect us from relatives, and undermine our agency. Capitalism and colonialism have drawn lines all over our lands, killing our people and our way of being with land and each other. An institution of “othering” has been a central tactic to the colonizing agenda to “divide and conquer.” In fact, settler colonialism has prevented the recognition of kinship between fellow Indigenous communities. 

The US/Mexico border is particularly politicized; border patrol tactics divert people from crossing by traditional migration routes, forcing them to cross riskier landscapes such as rivers and deserts. To protect an imaginary line imposed on occupied Indigenous land, death has become a means of political and social control. According to US Border Patrol statistics, approximately 7,209 migrant lives have been lost along the southwestern border over the past 20 years. This is vastly underestimated. The deaths of Indigenous migrants and the lack of data is relevant to other travesties practiced on Indigenous lands such as industrial extraction and the epidemic murder of our Indigenous women, girls, queer and trans community members. The tribes directly affected by the US/Mexico border include Pascua Yaqui, Yaqui in Mexico, Tohono O'odham, Tohono O'odham in Mexico, Cocopah-Pima, Gila River, Akimel O'odham, Pai Pai, Kumeyaay, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, Quechan, TIgua, Kickapoo, Mescalero Apache and Hualapai.

Something To Hold Onto responds to the unfathomable number of deaths that occur during migration. The death toll numbers are huge; how do we have considerate conversations around these everyday traumas? To better make sense of this, artist Cannupa Hanska Luger enlisted communities to generate a massive amount of objects that can physically represent this data. For this project, the artist asked people to contribute in creating over 7,209 hand-made beads which were then strung together in a large-scale ephemeral and immersive art installation.

“Through a collection of singular objects, I hope to translate these incomprehensible data sets into a tangible quantity, a physical scale, a spatial reality.” -Cannupa Hanska Luger

Each bead acknowledges someone who has died through the denial of their migratory rights. But moreover, each bead is embedded with a fist-print, acknowledging the witness of an individual maker, of someone who cares. Each object represents an individual, is made by an individual, and takes up real physical space. Rather than a massive single number, the work represents a multitude of individuals. Seeing this as a volume of handcrafted beads triggers something in people’s brains; it makes the unthinkable more real and makes connections through shared empathy. When strung together with other individuals, the line becomes an entity of its own. It becomes a symbol of solidarity. It illustrates how a line not only divides but also unifies. 

While contributing to a monumental artwork, we are also creating something to hold onto. With aims to honor the lives lost, the work also celebrates the effort it takes to collectively affect change. It represents a magnitude of care. The unfired clay beads represent a quantifiable number of people who have a hand in shaping communities, driven by the desire for something to hold onto -- in their morality, humanity and relationships. Something To Hold Onto actively engages those working towards Indigenous sovereignty and the liberation of Indigenous migration routes. 

When each unfired clay bead is strung together, the strand becomes a symbol of solidarity, illustrating how a line not only divides but also unifies. 

Something To Hold Onto is the second project in Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Counting Coup series which aims to utilize social collaboration to re-humanize large and abstract data through the process of creating handmade objects.