Reframing Migration

Reframing Migration

Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and Aesthetics of Subversion

Federica Mazzara

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mazzara, Federica, author.

Title: Reframing migration : Lampedusa, border spectacle and aesthetics of subversion / Federica Mazzara.

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018057325 | ISBN 9783034318846 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Arts--Political aspects--History--21st century. | Immigrants in art. | Refugees in art. | Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects. | Mediterranean Region--Social conditions--21st century.

Classification: LCC NX650.P6 M39 2019 | DDC 709.05--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057325

Cover image: Isaac Julien, Western Union, Small Boats

Three-screen installation

Videosphere: A New Generation. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 2011

Cover design by Peter Lang Ltd.

ISSN 1662-9108

ISBN 978-3-0343-1884-6 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78997-237-5 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-78997-238-2 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78997-239-9 (mobi)

© Peter Lang AG 2019

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,

52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom

oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Federica Mazzara has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without

the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,

and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Federica Mazzara is Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Communication at the University of Westminster. Her research interests lie in the interdisciplinary fields of migration studies and cultural studies. She has published widely on the literature of migration in Italy, theories of intermediality, and the visual arts as a form of political resistance. She has also curated art installations on migration, including Nothing is Missing by Mieke Bal, and is currently co-curating the exhibition Sink Without Trace (June-July 2019, P21 Gallery), which focuses on the issue of migrant deaths at sea.

About the book

"Reframing Migration interrogates the iconic status of Lampedusa as a centerpiece of the dominant European politics of migration and asylum. Examining a diverse array of artistic interventions into the asphyxiating discursive and scopic regime that frames the Mediterranean border spectacle of desperation and mass death, Federica Mazzara reveals a refreshing aesthetics of subversion."

— Nicholas De Genova, Professor and Chair,
Department of Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Houston

Over the past two decades, national and supranational institutions and the mass media have played a central role in presenting the migrant struggle in a sensational way, spreading an unjustified moral panic and relegating migrants themselves to spaces of invisibility.

Building on recent theoretical debates in migration studies around the so-called ‘autonomy of migration’ - which sees people on the move as individuals with self-determination and agency - this book reframes migration in the Mediterranean, and specifically around the island of Lampedusa.

In particular, the book explores how activist and art forms have become a platform for subverting the dominant narrative of migration and generating a vital form of political dissent, by revealing the contradictions and paradoxes of the securitarian regime that regulates immigration into Europe.

The analysis focuses on works by, among others, Broomberg & Chanarin, Centre for Political Beauty, Forensic Architecture, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, Isaac Julien, Tamara Kametani, Bouchra Khalili, Kalliopi Lemos, Zakaria Mohamed Ali, Maya Ramsay, Giacomo Sferlazzo, Aida Silvestri, Ai Weiwei, Lucy Wood and Dagmawi Yimer.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

chapter 1

Mapping Lampedusa: Spaces of (In)visibility in the Borderscape of Europe

chapter 2

From Bare Lives to Subjects of Power: A Counter-Map of Resistance

chapter 3

Border Aesthetics and Aesthetics of Subversion: Counter-Narratives in Migratory Contexts

chapter 4

Death and Memory after the Journey: Counter-Commemoration in Art

Afterword

Bibliography

Index←v | vi→ ←vi | vii→

Figures

Figure 1. Gianni Cipriano, Hill of Shame (2011). Reproduced with permission from Gianni Cipriano.

Figure 2. Porto M entrance. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 3. Porto M. Shelves with pots and pans. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 4. Giacomo Sferlazzo, Nostra Signora delle coperte isotermiche (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 5. Giacomo Sferlazzo, Madonna di Porto Salvo (2011). Reproduced with permission from the artist and the photographer (Laura Carnemolla).

Figure 6. Tamara Kametani, The Sea Stayed Calm for 180 Miles (2017). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 7. Tamara Kametani, Half a Mile from Lampedusa (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 8. Kalliopi Lemos, At Crossroads (2009). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 9. Kalliopi Lemos, Pledges (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.←vii | viii→

Figure 10. Kalliopi Lemos, Pledges for a Safe Passage (2012). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 11. Aida Silvestri, ‘Awet’ (part of Even This Will Pass) (2013–2014). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 12. Lucy Wood, Medusa (part of Distant Neighbours/Vicini e Lontani) (2011). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 13. Lucy Wood, ‘Boat Fragments. TG1 Online, 14/03/2011’ (part of Distant Neighbours/Vicini e Lontani) (2011). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 14. Lucy Wood, ‘Boat Fragments. News Reporter’, 07/04/2011 (part of Distant Neighbours/Vicini e Lontani) (2011). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 15. Lucy Wood, ‘TO6411’ (part of Distant Neighbours/Vicini e Lontani) (2013). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 16. Maya Ramsay, ‘Young female, died 5–8-2015’ (part of Countless) (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 17. Maya Ramsay, ‘No. 60. Graphite rubbing of unidentified migrant’s grave’ (part of Countless) (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.←viii | ix→

Figure 18. Maya Ramsay, ‘No. 60, unidentified migrant’s grave’ (part of Countless) (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 19. Maya Ramsay, ‘N 46904, unidentified migrant’s grave’ (part of Countless) (2016). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

Figure 20. Broomberg & Chanarin, The Bureaucracy of Angels (2017). Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Reproduced with permission from the artists.

Figure 21. Broomberg & Chanarin, The Bureaucracy of Angels (2017). Installation at the King’s Cross St Pancras Station, London. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Reproduced with permission from GG Archard.

Figure 22. Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, End of Dreams, detail (2015). Reproduced with permission from the artist.