Art, science give faces to migrants

Project hopes to identify remains found near border

It can be difficult to identify the remains of migrants found near the U.S.Mexico border, but a collaborative project that combines art with science is trying to change that.

As part of the project, art students in New York receive replica skulls of deceased migrants who remain unidenti- fied. They then “use their sculptural and artistic training to accurately reconstruct the face of the victim in clay,” according to the organizers with the New York Academy of Art.

The project, in partnership with the Pima County medical examiner, aims to help identify migrants who died near the Mexico border in Arizona by increasing the chance that someone will recognize the deceased.

identification, the bodies can’t be returned to families and authorities can’t get accurate data on border deaths.

The Arizona initiative is new, but the workshop formed in 2015 to help solve cold cases in New York.

“This was simply an opportunity to exercise their skills in anatomy and sculpture,” said John Volk, director of Continuing Studies at the school.

After reading a report about migrant deaths in The New York Times, Volk felt the workshop needed to spread its reach.

He asked the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office to reach out to Pima County.

“As artists, we just work in our studios,” said Volk. “To have the opportuni-

ty to help our community directly was a huge interest to our students.”

Because the remains are considered evidence, the students in New York didn’t work with the actual skulls of the migrants, Volk said. Instead, the students worked with 3-D prints of the skulls.

FARO, a Florida-based 3-D imaging company, used high-tech scanning equipment to capture data from 10 skulls and sent it to the students in New York. There, a 3-D printer re-created the skulls of eight of the migrants.

The data contained information on migrants who died in Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in the summers of 2016 and 2017.

“Our office has had consistently 30 or 40 skulls of unidentified men who are thought to be migrants or smugglers,” said Pima County Medical Examiner Bruce Anderson.

The number of migrants found dead along the border increased in 2017, despite fewer migrants illegally crossing, according to the United Nations.

An exact number of migrant deaths along the border is almost impossible to determine, a USA Today Network report concluded last year.

Anderson said his office was able to identify more than 99 percent of U.S. citizens from 2000 to 2017. Fifty-five bodies out of the more than 38,000 his office examined during that time were not identified.

Migrants, however, who often have relatives and records in a different country, are more difficult to identify.

Pima County identified 64 percent of suspected migrant cases from 2000 to 2017, Anderson said.

During that time, his office examined 2,816 suspected migrants who died crossing the border in Arizona and identified 1,812 of them, he said.

Forensic specialist Joe Mullins instructed the students. Mullins has worked for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as an artist for 18 years.

“I feel it is my obligation to pass on what I’ve learned to others and hopefully inspire other artists to lend their talents to helping these victims get their names back,” said Mullins.

Anthropologists are able to determine the age, ancestry, gender of a person by assessing the skull. Once an assessment is performed, the information and a 3-D print is given to the artist.

Students faced challenges when creating the forensic sculptures.

“The challenge is to put the correct face back on the skull,” said Mullins. “Each skull is unique, and the students have to follow the details of what the skull is telling them, to make sure they sculpt the face that goes with the skull to help spark recognition.”

The Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office hopes to find more ways to help identify remains of migrants.

“We can do a better job at identifying, if we all work together,” said Anderson.

The sculptures are on display at the New York Academy of Art until March 29.