Over the past year, What Remains has traveled farther than we imagined—not only across places, but into classrooms, museums, shelters, farms, universities, and communities.

And none of this happened by chance.

Because of your generous support, we were able to bring What Remains and La Trenza into museums, art galleries, universities, elementary and middle schools, migrant shelters, community spaces, international conferences, and artist residencies—creating exhibitions, workshops, presentations, and collaborative interventions shaped by the people and communities we encountered along the way.

At Tecnológico de Monterrey, we were invited by Cátedra Alfonso Reyes, Cultural Heritage, Cultural Development and School of Humanities and Education Programs to create a space for dialogue where students and migrants living in shelters in Monterrey, came together to weave their personal objects and stories into La Trenza. The intervention became a shared act of storytelling, connecting lived experience with academic exchange. What Remains was also presented as part of the collective exhibition Migrants: A Tale of Two Hearts at both the Monterrey and Mexico City campuses, placing the project in dialogue with works by artists from Mexico and beyond.

In New Hampshire, Dartmouth College Social Impact students worked alongside migrant women from dairy farms in Vermont, weaving their objects, memories, and experiences together into La Trenza. Their contributions became part of the installation and of the growing archive of encounters that continues to shape the work.

We also shared the project at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans, bringing What Remains into conversation with researchers, educators, anthropologists and artists from around the world.

In Sicily, the RADICAL SHE artist residency at the Farm Cultural Park gave us the opportunity to create new site-specific work in dialogue with local communities, the landscape, and migration histories of the Mediterranean.

In Denver, the American Conference for Irish Studies and the University of Colorado invited us to participate in their annual meeting. We developed Las Juntas: An Comar, bringing together music, soundscape, theater, narration, photography, performance, installation, and dance, the project created an artistic encounter between Irish and Mexican histories and communities, exploring the connections that can re-emerge across different places, memories, and experiences.

Back in our region, in Ciudad Juárez, we had the honor of collaborating with Programa Compañeros as they celebrated their 40th anniversary. Together, we presented What Remains alongside communities they have led for decades through harm reduction, health, and human rights programs. The exhibition brought art into conversation with lived experiences along the border and created a space for listening, acknowledgement, dignity, and shared humanity.

Through each of these encounters, La Trenza continued to transform and reconstitute.

What began with objects rescued from the desert has been reshaped by the hands, memories, and stories of every community and every individual that has encountered it. Each object woven into the braid gives it new meaning. It carries traces of where it has been, the people who have touched it, and the stories entrusted to it.

La Trenza is no longer only an object we carry from place to place. It has become a living archive shaped collectively by everyone who has become part of its journey.

And because of you, that journey continues.

Your support allows us to create new work, document stories, organize workshops, collaborate with communities, travel and bring What Remains into places where these encounters occur. This next year we are working on publishing a book that contains research based data, testimonials and a visual narrative that represents the humanitarian document we have created about migration. We are also planning to store all the art works in one storage/studio space that will allow us to care for and preserve this growing archive so that the stories entrusted to us can expand, continue to travel and be shared locally and internationally.

As we look toward the next chapter, we hope you will continue walking with us. Every contribution, no matter its size, helps another story be heard, another community participate, and another connection take shape.

Thank you for believing in this work.