Pushing a strand of magenta hair out of her face, Ruth Leonela Buentello recovered from a tearful moment.
Buentello, this year’s Efroymson Emerging Artist in Residence, was recounting an incident in her hometown of San Antonio where nine migrants died in a case of human smuggling. The migrants, who were undocumented and had most likely just crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, died after spending hours in a Walmart van without air conditioning in the middle of a notoriously hot Texas summer.
“They were begging for their lives,” Buentello said. “And no one published their names, their family members. … I just don’t know how to not feel and not say something.”
Buentello, the University of Michigan’s third Efroymson Emerging Artist, recounted this event at her art exhibition, titled “Yo Tengo Nombre,” on Thursday evening. Around 30 people attended the exhibition and Q&A session at the Institute for the Humanities gallery.
Much of Buentello’s artwork, which included photographs and paintings, attempts to humanize the politicized situation at the border.
