Transient Matter is a student-organized and curated exhibition of artifacts linked to the migrant and border crossing experience and collected from the island of Lesvos, on the Greek-Turkish Border. It was prepared as part of the course, MGRK1210: A Migration Crisis? Displacement, Materiality, and Experience, taught by Professor Yannis Hamilakis. It asks us to reflect on the physical traces and remnants of border crossing, and invites us to understand the phenomenon paying attention to “small things forgotten”, to life-vests, thermal blankets, prayer mats and other personal objects that migrated and crossed borders together with humans. It addresses the whole assemblage of border crossing and migration, from migrants to volunteers and solidarity networks, and foregrounds both the agony and pain of displacement as well as the resilience, determination and inventiveness of the new nomads of our age.

Transient Matter can be found in spaces on the first, second, and third (mezzanine) floors of Rhode Island Hall and will be on view until Fall 2019.