Artist Javier Sanchez wants you to remember the names of 43 students who went missing on Sept. 26 in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico.
The students who had been attending Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ School of Ayotzinapa, had gone to Iguala to protest discriminatory hiring practices by the Mexican government.
After an altercation with police, the students were taken into custody. The official investigation done after their bodies were discovered revealed that the students were handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel and apparently killed.
“This is not the first, biggest, or most gruesome mass disappearance during Mexico’s past eight years of brutal drug violence,” Sanchez said. “But the tragedy of Ayotzinapa is different. Rarely has the collusion between local authorities and the cartels been so obvious and the consequences so dire.”
Now, months after the disappearance of more than three dozen students, Sanchez’s tribute – “43 Days 43 Names,” is on display in the lobby of the Barrick Museum on the UNLV campus. Sanchez put the total death toll at more than 106,000 since former Mexican President Felipe Calderon informally declared war on drugs in 2006.
Related Story: Remains of 1 of 43 Missing Mexican Students Identified
The project, which started showing on Nov. 22, will run for 43 consecutive days displaying the 43 missing students on a TV screen, along with sound and a floor piece inside the museum’s lobby.
GUEST:
Javier Sanchez, artist
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