The issue of 21st century migration flows is a topic that affects all of Europe and will be one of the main topics for future years.

The change in political geography is revolutionizing the organization of national organizations, as a consequence integration and multi-ethnicity will be issues that will radically transform our society.

It will be an irreversible change, which will be remembered in time as the major world events.

Perhaps today it is no longer correct to talk about migrants and migrations, but we can realistically define this displacement of populations as a real diaspora.

Those who decide to reach the European continent do so because they are moved by a need for survival, because they are hunted or deprived of their fundamental rights in their country of origin.

In this exodus there are so many who can not, the chronicles sadly report the innumerable shipwrecks, in which those who depart leave, unfortunately, their expectations and hopes at the bottom of that stretch of sea that unites Africa to Europe.

For those who remain there is nothing to cry about, not a place to lay a flower; For this reason, for about a year I have been interested in these realities trying to deepen the motivations, the choices made by those who leave.

One might mention Erich Fromm explaining that having to take advantage of the poorest countries without ever having rewarded you is now producing its fruits.

As an artist, I tried to capture some fundamental aspects, understand Middle Eastern realities, investigate conflicts and religious, political and economic divisions.

But what has emerged most prevalently is the suffering of people of women and men seeking hope for a better world.

This path led me to go back to migratory flows until I landed

Lampedusa.

Through the political and institutional bodies I brought my instances, who came to the Court of Agrigento have found their acceptance by the Attorney General who for the first time granted the null clearance to be able to access Loran Base to take part of the hulls subjected to confiscation and destined for destruction as offenses.

In September of this year, I was able to go to Lampedusa for the completion of this project, with materials and equipment to take part of the hulls.

In the Loran Base, in addition to picking up the barracks, video footage and a series of photographs were produced to document the type of artistic intervention that was to be realized.

The recovery of this sectioned, documented and cataloged material was brought to my studio, hence the creation of the works of Touroperator, works symbolizing the seabed, the same seabed where the shipwrecks occurred.

Each work consists of so many fragments of those woods and the number of those fragments is equal to the number of victims of each single shipwreck represented, the title of the work is the date of the shipwreck.

Massimo Sansavini

EXHIBITION TECHNICAL SHEET

     

                     

     

  

Composition of the exhibition:

35 works on wall size from 50 x 50 cm up to works of dimensions cm 150 x 150 and cm 100 x 200.

 

4 sculptures of height 100-280 cm.

35 Photos on Aluminum sheet cm 50 x 70, with image of  Lampedusa cemetery boats (former Loran military base)

A video made in the Lampedusa Boat Cemetery (former US military base Loran), which tells the project and documents the route. Duration 7 minutes.

A video that documents the creation of works. Duration 3 minutes.

10 preparatory drawings for sculptural works measurements cm 35 x 50 framed.

Various items retrieved inside the hull helmets, life buckets, furnishings and personal items found in the hulls.

Touroperator logo, length 3.5 m

Flooring representing the map of the Mediterranean with marked migratory flows varying in size according to the exhibition space.

The works are made with the wood of the migrant hulls and with the material found at the Lampedusa cemetery of the former American base Loran. in September / October 2015 as a result of permission to access and withdraw this material by the Court of Agrigento.