Belts. Toothpaste. Shoelaces. Wallets. Rosaries.
These are some of the things that are lost or confiscated from migrants who are caught by U.S. authorities trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Tom Kiefer is a photographer who lives in Ajo, near the border in southern Arizona. He was working as a janitor at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol when he began collecting these things. Today, he has thousands upon thousands of them.
For years he just collected them. But, then, he started laying out these seemingly mundane objects and photographing them.
The result is an ongoing collection called “ El Sueño Americano,” which translates to “the American dream.” Now, the project has been talked about everywhere from CNN to the New Yorker.
Kiefer sat down to talk more about the project.
The newest edition of his project now at “ Art Under the Arches,” in the historic downtown plaza of Ajo, Arizona.
