Trail with Black Plastic Bags, Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Texas

In 2007, Susan Harbage Page began photographing objects left behind by migrants crossing the US-Mexico border between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, and west to Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas. These three photographs from the series capture empty cartons, a lone sock, and discarded plastic bags, as well as the vacant trails and passageways once traveled by migrants. Harbage Page photographs the various personal belongings unmoved from the positions in which they have fallen to the ground, integrated into landscapes of departure and arrival, of loss and gain. These items testify to lives that have moved on, and remind viewers of the things that may have been left behind, such as family, friends, and home. They serve as souvenirs of the past as well as symbols of hope for the future. In contemplating the absent owner, the viewer is left to wonder about the rest of the story, the before and after, only hinted at by the scraps that remain.