Marcus DeSieno Wins 2026 CENTER Project Launch Grant for Border Deaths Project

Key facts

• Marcus DeSieno received the 2026 CENTER Project Launch Grant for Geography of Disappearance: Migrant Deaths on the US/Mexico Border.
• The grant includes a $5,000 cash award, Review Santa Fe participation, publication in LENSCRATCH, professional development seminars, inclusion in CENTER’s Program Guide, a group exhibition, and the CENTER Winners Gallery & Archive.
• Diane Waggoner, curator and acting head of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, served as juror.
• DeSieno uses wet-plate collodion negatives made in the field; prints are archival pigment enlargements of lith prints in editions of 14x18 and 28x36 inches.
• The project documents sites where unknown migrants’ bodies were found, using autopsy reports and data from humanitarian organizations and local and state police.
• The United Nations has declared the US-Mexico border the deadliest land crossing in the world.
• DeSieno is Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
• Waggoner’s exhibition Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography, co-curated with Kristen Gaylord, runs May 23–August 23, 2026, at the National Gallery.