Dozens of plaster dental casts are displayed on a wall, conjuring up the forensic method of identifying bodies based on dental records. Each dental record features a small piece of text describing occasions in which people were disappeared by authoritarian governments.
The installation also contains a book in which visitors are asked to remember their loved ones who have passed. The installation, situated in the context of a traditional exhibition of altars for the dead for Dias des los Muertos, asks about the way in which we are unable to remember and memorialize when closure is not possible because a loved one has never been heard of again and no body found.
Media: installation, dental impressions, plaster of paris, plexiglass, wall labels and diary
Location: Offering Light to the Shadow, New College, San Francisco, CA, 1998
Location: Labyrinth of the Dead, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, 1997