The Men Who Left

When artist Alejandro Santiago Ramirez http://www.2501migrants.com/home.html returned to his birthplace, San Pedro Teococuilco, a farming community in the Ixtlán district, he was dismayed to discover that 2,500 of the men had left for the States or other parts of Mexico because of chronic poverty and unemployment, leaving behind the women, children and the elderly.

In a dream, Santiago had a vision of re-populating his community. He decided to create 2,500 ceramic figures to represent the absent villagers. Then he added one additional sculpture of himself and called his work "2,501 Migrants."

Bob and I stumbled upon the sculptures one night while out for a walk. I was gobsmacked by this monumental effort. The statues are in front of the Santa Domingo church in Oaxaca now.

From here they'll go to Santiago's home
town and then to a museum -- although I can't imagine a museum having the space -- either inside or outside, for statutes numbering half the population of the town of Deep River in Ontario where our children grew up.