Women and migration photo-project: notes, feelings and reflections
My subject of interest is focused on women arrived in Europe with the migratory wave in recent years. In particular I will focus my attention on women arrived in Sicily. Identity is my starting point. In this document I will describe my perception of the phenomenon and I will theorize a hypothetical action to give my theoretical and practical contribution.📷
Nowadays we are surrounded by distractions to avoid the real economic and sociopolitical climate. Socioeconomic disparities, fear of terrorism and his association to the “fear of the stranger”, the rising of the extreme right wing in many countries and a migratory wave that is marking an era, are mixed up with fake news and the illusion that all this is so far from north Europe.
The Guardian wrote “Migrant sea route to Italy is the world’s most lethal”. More than 10 thousand migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, according the International Organization Of Migration.
Talking about sociology of the spectacle, Walter Benjamin says “the replacement of narration by information, of information by sensation, reflects the increasing atrophy of experience. It is not the object of the story to convey a happening per se, rather it embed it in the life of the storyteller in order to pass it on as an experience.”
Migrant images spread by media not only do not give justice to the demographic, economic and social profile of the migratory phenomenon, but also contribute to feed the progress of labelling from which stereotypes spring. Migration is treated
with sensationalism, and racism is a global problem as well as sexism. It is a widespread phenomenon with physical, physiological and social consequences.
Many studies conducted by universities, EU commission and independent associations, show how chauvinism is a social and human right problem in the civilized Europe.
I started photographing as part of my artistic research in 2007/2008 to support my understanding, inspiration and reasoning. My previous course of study was a BA in Theory and Technique of Visual Multimedia Communication, so I included photography as part of an interdisciplinary practice alongside with performance, experimental theatre, sound design, installation and writing. But I’d like to underline that my practice is also a way to live: art, ethic and spirituality are interlocked each other and this feature influences as well my practice and my daily life. In this case photography can be considered a cathartic moment: being a European white woman can be considered a privilege, but the privilege is the base of the gap between the “right, lucky side” and the rest of the world. Because of this condition I felt the need to find common points between me and those women: we are all foreigners of someone. I would say that although I felt like a foreigner and suffered firsthand experiences of heavy racism, I was also "born on the lucky side of the world" and it is my duty to analyze the mechanisms without complaining too much, because there are people who suffer much more than me. I chose to be a nomad because I understood that "my land" is a very reductive way of understanding the world. The people I see around me are not foreigners, they are my brothers and sisters. 📷
I demonstrate it with my life choices, with everyday choices and with the ideas that I carry on and if I do not do it, I just feel bad.I will start my argument reflecting about identity and, according to Michael Lewis[7], our perception of ourselves is determined by the categorical and existential self, both influenced by the surrounding environment. What is the surrounding environment nowadays?
The ubiquitous phone and other devices, with their relative impact of technology pull our minds giving us the illusion to live on the right side of the world; taking off more important issues and values from our minds. The hive mentality[8] is increasing and is taking hold of more and more remarking apathy, classism and racism. A good metaphor is the second episode of Black Mirror called 15 Millions Merits (title referred to Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes of Fame) aired by Channel 4 in 2011. This episode recounts about a dystopian world with disturbing reflections with the present. The protagonist lives a hyper controlled reality, a codified routine that refers to the echo of nothingness. Pedalling in front of screens that impose junk programs, he feeds the energy that keeps the world upright. In this way he obtains points that he uses to improve the avatar with which he interfaces with the world. The object that he uses for rebellion, in the absence of a project, is integrated by the system in its great fictional narrative scope, becoming an instrument of manipulation of the "revolutionary" experiences that are thus sedated.
The stories I would like to narrate, if not thought in terms of narrative of resistance to a process underway for decades of dehumanization, are likely to become the emotional container of the residuals of humanity, actually being inside the system.
I did not do any official photo session, I just talked to people and listened to them. As my father used to say “abbiamo due orecchie e una bocca perchè dobbiamo ascoltare il doppio di quanto parliamo” (“We have one mouth and two ears because we must listen twice of what we talk”). I think that feeling under pressure might drive people away. I do not want them to think that they are there to show off their lives, profit and disgrace. There is no point in going around taking hundreds of shots. In my opinion it only demonstrates that technology allows people to deceive themselves through new rituals useful to understand the difference between culture production and the flatting technocracy effect.
On December 16th in Palermo I met people from the association Moltivolti (literally many faces) to talk about my intention and reflect upon it. We agreed that, considering the delicacy of the topic, the best way to go is to spend as much time as possible on the territory, gaining the confidence of the subjects, meet them and know them HUMANLY. That’s also the concept that moved me to hypothesize a collaboration with the association and art collective TRINART[12], very active in the social and cultural sector, which will could allow me to meet the women refugees. I’m waiting for a response from the prefect of Catania to get inside the C.A.R.A. in Mineo.
Intertwining threads must not become, as often happens, the story that makes us emotionally move. Otherwise they turn into being the exotic bourgeois salon of colonialism. What makes me sick most and creates a lot of anxiety is that when people refer to migrants, it is like reading the words of Christopher Columbus when he describes the "savages" as "beautiful and meek but naked and idolatrous". The West has the concept of the native people to exploit and subjugate, cases of humanism to study. They feed the mythical debate of seventeenth-century memory as that of the “noble savage-villain savage", leaving to reveal a projection of the collective imagination to say the least embarrassing.
Interfacing with these people shuffles the cards: the clearest feeling I have is of entrapment and I do not want to end up like Madame Bovary, I need to direct this topic listening to my anger, setting the speech as if it were a journey. The trip is a key issue because it interprets and expresses the disquietude of the modern individual, defines a path of autonomy and exposes me to situations outside the comfort zone, produces humanization at a time when individualism is affirmed and forgotten of the very nature of being human beings.
As I already mentioned I chose to be nomad, to discover the world travelling, meeting people and their customs and traditions, eating their food and absorbing what I can learn from other cultures. The value of the journey has always been very dear to me. Personally I consider the archetype of the traveller part of my being. For this reason, probably, I've always been interested in the figure of Ulysses in its various aspects and nuances, especially in recent years. Ulysses is in fact a man with a past, an adult man who acted and thought, not a young man at his first experience. Ulysses’s journey is the expression of controversial propulsion of topics such as adventure, nostalgia or voluntary departure. His journey becomes right away exploration and knowledge. The journey is intended as a tool for discovery , a tool to see a wider picture of the world The value of the journey is about the experience of formation and questioning yourself, not only discovery. Ulysses in Dante’s Inferno is the expression of the intention to know, commonality with others and regeneration, all moments that sign memory and consequently life.The travel is a commonplace of experiences because it produces deep individual levels of social, psychological structures that flatten social differences. We are not talking about tourism (which is completely influenced by the social status), but a common field of metaphors to better understand ourselves and the others. It is not a case that Dante’s narration of Ulysses does not ignore the attachment to the family, but this does not stop Ulysses from the need of knowledge, he calls “brothers” his friends and pushes them to ask themselves about the meaning of life and enjoy the existence and the chance to keep learning. This is also my view of the journey. It is a trip to open to break equilibrium and it is crucial, because it provokes the dynamism of that kind of exchange that composes the experience. In my experience, the journey defines a path of autonomy and exposes me out of my comfort zone; the journey is a world practice, a more complete humanization in a moment in which individualism is making people forget the very nature of being human beings. It is a way to produce culture and knowledge out of closed systems; instead, this practice is based on open systems and dialogue. My Itineraries are thought to merge the art practice with the journey experience, to develop the observations skills and produce reflections. The return, anyway, is not the conclusion, but a reflective moment of elaboration. Research is a journey and in every journey the man looks for a piece of himself: it is a mirror in which we can find stereotypes, anxieties and prejudices.
The city where I come from, Palermo, though it pushed me out of her womb because of the social climate of contradictions and difficulties, has also taught me since my childhood the value of interculturality, of the nonsense of ethnocentrism and pushed me to look deep inside the values of anti racism as well as antifascism and feminism. I had in fact the chance to face political experiences since I was fourteen becoming quickly aware of the sociopolitical dimension and of the individual's need to contribute to the fight against a system based on social inequality and injustice.
People from North Italy often call Sicilian people (but more in general all the people from extreme south of Italy) Africans as an insult. I can still remember the first time it happened to me. In my case, being a Sicilian is something to be proud of. My Island is a mixture of different cultures: in three thousand years of human history our mixed culture was made by so many different influences,from Vikings to Arabs, from Greeks to Byzantines. The geographical position made Sicily a perfect tactical position attracting many cultures, habitudes, influences and I felt part of it finding it difficult to understand why others feel the need to be “pure”. This Island can be considered the proof that mixing and meeting other cultures enrich and improve the common cultural baggage. We can actually coexist quietly and peacefully. Even our language is influenced by the many populations who colonized the Island. That’s mainly the reason why I cannot understand the sense of racism, the sense of fear of the other. There is too much to see and know to avoid contaminations.That’s why I felt the need to encourage trust and respect, working on something can really matter, something very real, not only about the single, but about something can really matter to all the people. Images are powerful tools that too many practitioners use in an aphasic way.
‘Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’
Why does this research need to be conducted and what issues does it raise?
I ended one of the articles of my blog saying "Being an artist is not an individualistic choice”. And I here confirm what I wrote. In my view the role of art is not to produce a mere representation, but to instigate the social, political and economic forces, and process them ethically. It is an active choice in society, not a game of mirrors. On contemporary art and migration Emine Yeter, MSc Migration Studies Graduate in Oxford, writes ”Since summer 2015, the 'migrant crisis' has become somewhat of a 'hot topic' in the art world, owing to the sector’s natural tendency towards political activism, but also its ability to inform and educate. More and more art institutions are engaging with the topic of migration, from individual artists and small charity organisations to huge national galleries. The results are varied in terms of their success (and ethical motivations), but have the political potential to completely change public debate and sentiment towards immigration: a potential that is radically undervalued by politicians, who see art as a pointless exercise in self-expression”
THE NEED OF AN ENEMY
From a psychological point of view people who are intolerant, or who have difficulty in accepting a different aspect of life, are egocentric, narcissistic. In the most serious cases of intolerance they are selfish people who have a deep unconscious fear of the other, a sense of omnipotence (which leads them to think that they are superior to the other), they think they have the absolute truth, and have no respect for the others. According to the research conducted by professor Gordon Hodson (Brock University- Ontario) and professor Kristof Dhont (University of Kent - UK) there is a cognitive feature to consider. If you have a low IQ as a child, it is more likely for you to develop prejudices when you grow up. According to the study those who are less intelligent are also more likely to have conservative political visions. The research was based on a British database of more than 15 thousand people , whose IQ was measured first at the age of 10 or 11 and then were they were over 30.
Umberto Eco writes “Social media give legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.” (Trans. T. Bolin)
“The adhesion to conservative visions has been verified through the measure of the agreement with phrases like 'Working mothers are a ruin for families', or 'The school should teach to obey authority', while prejudices have been studied through phrases like 'I would never work with people of other races'. The result was that children with lower IQs showed the greatest tendencies to racism. They said they agreed more with the conservative phrases and in general they were among those with less contact with people of other races: "This obviously does not mean that all conservatives are stupid and the liberal liberals - explains Gordon Hodson- here we talk about medium trends: we can say that, in general, men are taller than women, but you cannot say, if you take a random man and a random woman, who is taller. "
In my opinion this research can be a valid support to give great importance to the young development, in order to let more open-minded generations grow in the future. Art, and more in general visual production, influences people’s choices and actions. The collective images of a given epoch are immersed in a rhythm of ebb and flow that break within the different geocultural areas, generating a multitude of configurations. The key to understanding the dynamics between culture and society, as pointed out by George Simmel, is that in every form, once encountered obsolescence, cannot remain still and decays, leaving room for the next form, both in society and in the cultural sphere.
Recognizing the hidden fascisms between the meshes of society is not simple, but Umberto Eco has left an important contribution with a paper published for the first time in La Rivista dei Libri, 7/8 July / August 1995, entitled "Totalitarianism fuzzy and ur-fascism”, and then inserted in "Five moral writings". In this document he outlines the fundamental characteristics of all fascisms, that is, of all those phenomena which, starting from the Mussolini model, have replicated the same identity system in different forms and contents. We can define it as an identikit of fascism in its abstract form, net of historical variations.
In fact, Eco calls it Ur-Fascism, or "eternal fascism", that is fascism in its intimate essence. The prefix "Ur-" comes from German and is used to indicate the primogenial variant of the concept to which it is accompanied, its archetypal version.
2017 was the year of the raising of the right wings. Throughout Europe, from small villages to large cities, intimidation, blitzing, killing and beatings have been the counterpart to propaganda and marches. The 2017 Nazi-Fascist horror was revealed with the Warsaw march, in which 60 thousand members of the extreme right gathered to parade against "Negroes and Jews”. The initiative in which xenophobic and anti-Semitic white supremacy slogans were cried out against blacks and Arabs 'overshadowed' the official celebrations of the day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War, which gave sovereignty to Poland. What impressed me most was that the fascist rhetoric has not changed in the 70 years since its beginning. In Italy the references to Romanity, to the Risorgimento and to the mythic and heroic oratory have not changed. Not based on any philosophy, we move on a rhetorical and passionate approach, adopting any philosophy that can be useful. The dialectic and the oratory are a pragmatic necessity: there are numerous cases of denigration and offense, insults and vulgarity that recall the vulgarity used by Mussolini himself in his speeches.
I saw posters used by extreme right-wing groups and the one that struck me most was the poster used by Forza Nuova (Difendila!, Defend HER!) from the second world war, Forza Nuova (literally New Force) has denounced the invaders and the threat that they constitute for the docile angels of the Italian hearth . Attention, we have identified the enemy: go ahead in defending the virtues of the fair sex.
The public opinion, therefore, stagnates from all this media and political operation. Hate online (Hate Speech) is growing throughout Europe and exploits the web, on one hand by appealing to freedom of speech, but, on the other, rejecting the prohibition of discrimination. Mass media and social media are the privileged means to spread the ideas of certain political factions. For example, in the US, the Tea Party[35] is considered responsible for the growing discriminatory behaviour towards Mexican immigration, and Trump had problems in dissociating from the far right and the white supremacists positions and actions. Instead, he still prefers to share online hate contents from Britain First’s account. The Lega in Italy the UMP of Marine Le Pen in France, and the UKIP of Nigel Farage in the UK have obtained a remarkable electoral success at the 2014 European elections with a series of alarming messages on the risks of immigration, and misleading on European integration.
This social climate is generating violence and at present the fascist visual and political rhetoric is catching on day after day..
The rising of fascisms and nationalisms across Europe and the US, inside and outside the institutions, is a dangerous fact reported and observed by many e.g. The Independent, El Paìs, Le Figaro or Quartz
I got inspiration by the photo research conducted in 2016 by the documentary photographer Cézar Dezfuli titled Passengers. In 2016 181.436 migrants have been rescued, 4.576 died. He questioned himself: who is behind these numbers? What’s the identity of the victims and of the survivors? He composed 188 portraits of all the 118 people on the boat rescued on 1st August 2016, documenting their names and ages. In his website he writes “their faces, their looks, the marks on their body, their clothes or the absence of it … reflect the mood and the physical state in which they are in a moment they had already marked their lives forever- Documenting it serve to bring migration reality closer to who observe it from distance”
This research is mainly a registry, we do not actually know anything about people. In addition, we can say that, being the migratory flow mainly made up of men, the female reality is marginally told. In 2016 an investigative report conducted by the Italian issuer La7 revealed that prostitution and illegal abortions were perpetrated in the sunlight. Jo Spence(1934 London - 1992 London) in her The Politics of Photography underlines that both commercial and "charity" photography are a one-sided account of the situation. "Some of them (photographers) now employ quite sophisticated techniques to attract our attention and make us feel guilty. Using international advertising agencies we are sold the illustrated saga of the underprivileged and those suffering from the "cycle of deprivation"(or exploitation?).(...) Usually tastefully designed pictures of women and children on the covers on glossy paper, are taken by people of a different social class form those depicted (my case). They have a difficult task seeing in the medium of photography the only way in which they can help present a case of consideration (...)However such a "victim" can react very violently when faced with pictures of themselves as potential recipients of charity handouts. The integrity of photographers faced with this situation. Eventually, when such pictures (heavily edited) are used, they are accompanied by statements which dissociate themselves from politics. Such reports and appeals are financed by governments or charities whose terms of reference seem to force the use of countless euphemisms or total exclusion of the contradictions of local and central government policies, or the part played by profeeting in the text accompanying photographs. It is almost if such appeals were all part of some secret ritual in which the "facts" are presented for consideration, but presented in such a way that we remain mystified as to the real causes, or even the blaming of victims.
Spending time in understanding
“(...)As Brecht points out, a Photograph of the Krupp works reveals virtually nothing about the organization. In contrast to the amorous relation, which is based on how something looks, understanding is based on how it functions. And functioning take place in time, and must be explained in time. Only that which narrates can make us understand.”
I chose to let the events flow; when you meet someone, especially for the first time, you can't just plan what you want from them.
What I would like to do, in fact, is to let the refugee women show me what they want and feel. I do not want to be the one who builds their visual narration; my task is to leave them free to tell and show what they think it is worth narrating, respecting their freedom of choice. Only in this way can a sincere and respectful narration be reported. Not forcing is important in order not to spoil the story, therefore I will let events flow so that situations and images come to me freely.
As Susan Sontag underlines “to suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen the conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them (...) images anaesthetize”
My objective is to go against racist images and the beliefs they generate: producing a visual narrative and exploring the various aspects of the system. The goal is also to analyze and understand the social processes that lead to short circuits of meaning through the knowledge of the people who animate the show proposed by the media. Giving a name and a face is not enough, we must learn to know and to listen to the other. The female question is a civilization matter. The sequence of exploitation of the women's body in a racist and sexist key is long: either victims or whores, the battleground is always the woman's body.
Think global, act local: GLOCAL What’s my act?
The main part of the process is a conversation, not a formal interview. This will allow me to build a clear relationship, interacting both at the same level. In collaboration with local realities I’ll try to explore faces, traces and spaces of the refugee women community, in order to facilitate “the production of new knowledge and counter hegemonic texts to offset, borrowing Roger Bromleys words ‘the circulation in politic and media of a set of negative images and vocabularies relating to refugees and asylum seekers (...) Partnership and collaboration are the heart of the research. The aim is to produce knowledge that is useful both locally and internationally” -
“ Annette Markam (2004) has analytically drawn on the duality of the internet as a method: as just a research tool for collecting, analysing and presenting results; or as a field for conducting research -that is, the social context where the subject meet and interact (...) Sometimes using internet technologies enables the development of strategies for gaining access to extremely elusive or specially sensitive groups, for example, medical patients (Illingworth, 2001; Orgard, 2005) or neo-nazi groups (Kimmel 2008)”
The double reality off and online requires a special strategy. I got the inspiration from the Guerrilla girls methodology. My plan is in fact to present the images in uncommon or unusual places offline and online, as well as cultural spaces. To do so I’m collaborating with Daniele Antonini, a master student in Digital Marketing at John Moores University in Liverpool. The general idea is to create a landing page or other form to gather as many email addresses as possible (both institutional and not) and create sponsored social media ads using both the neutral and the opposite hashtag as well as oxymoron keywords (e.g. an image with a refugee can appear in the opposite faction’s wall using the hashtag #white or #borders) generating traffic in order to fully reach the aim of the project. To complete the action we are thinking to publish all the reactions in a dedicated webspace, also creating a hashtag and/or a qr code (to be printed in the posters) to involve also other people and link the online reality (global) with the off line one (local). The offline idea is based on two different experiences: one in a gallery exhibiting the photos eventually requiring an action from the viewer; and one out of the gallery, spreading out images on stickers or posters placed in unusual and unexpected places. Another important thing is to give space to those who have no voice. I would like to create a visual document in which migrant women tell about themselves. The women who arrive and are "welcomed" are still crushed in their role and it is important, in my opinion, to deal with the theme of anti-racism and anti-sexism transversally. Women refugee are excluded from public spaces and media discourse, have the right to be considered subjects and not political objects. I want to enter where these women live, I want to give value to these women and denounce the inhumane state in which many, too many of them, live. Art can be a tool of self determination, not only a mere “beauty builder”; there is no point nowadays in representing the ideal beauty (or look for it). In my opinion there is the need to stop the visual idealization, I call upon a return on reality with all the issues, ugliness and honesty of intents.
below Gender and migration: a feminist approach
talk held in Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia
