MARCO SCERRI
DISTANT
LAND
And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. Acts 28:1-2
For my late grandfather, Saviour Scerri
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Take a look at a map of the Mediterranean Sea, and observe its form, its profile, its contours. This is not a Rorschach test, but with a little pareidolic imagination, you may notice that the Mediterranean is the shape of a fetus: two feet crossed between Spain and Morocco, head resting against Egypt and Palestine, umbilical cord leading up to the Italo-Slovenian Alps. The comfort of the womb, a fertile basin, the cradle of civilisation. Now rotate the map 180º, south-up. You may see the shape of a small boat, complete with a low cabin, or a rectangular Pheonician sail. Travel, migration, trade. With the little boat still in mind, bring the map back to its ‘standard’ (yet utterly conventional) north-up orientation. The Mediterranean is also the shape of a corpse, in fetal position, lying at the bottom of the sea. It’s been there for a while, enough to turn as blue as the water that swallowed it whole. Close to the belly button of this fetus-corpse is the island of Malta, itself shaped like a miniature fish, tail to the north-west, open mouth to the south-east. There’s a saying we use a lot in Malta, about fish reeking from their heads - secrets will always find their way out, guilt will always manifest itself unwittingly. In a small country like Malta, there’s not much use in hiding anything, but she tries anyway. For reasons as much social as geographical, the south-east of the island is where the nation-state has chosen to stash its dirty laundry: industry, the power station, a recycling plant, the freeport. At the very chin of the fish is a remote area called Ħal Far, which literally translates to Ratville. This is where the Peace Lab and the migrant “tent city” are located. And this is where Marco Scerri has chosen to take his camera, his curiosity, his contemplative yet non-judgmental gaze. The tents, shipping containers, prefabricated blocks and former airplane hangars of Ħal Far today house hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants, the “darker feather in globalisation’s cap”, as Joe Sacco describes them at the beginning of his graphic story The Unwanted. Across the roundabout, Father Dijonisju Mintoff’s Peace Lab is home to a small group of Africans who, after losing the jobs and rented rooms they had briefly managed to secure after leaving the tents, suddenly found themselves unemployed and without a roof. Among the background noises in both places are the shrieking planes arriving and departing (the airport runway is but a stone’s throw away), the revving motors of go-cart races, the early-morning gunshots of hunters in the fields, wedding
Antoine Cassar Maltese poet, author of Passport
celebrations in specially-catered villas only metres down the road. In one photograph, Scerri has kindly captured Ibrahim, getting ready to pray, looking toward the Mecca. South-east, that is. His invisible line of worship must first leap over the nearby freeport, the shipping containers, the passing tankers. Yet Ibrahim is not oil, metals or merchandise, and he’ll be staying put. I’m no photography buff, but as a profane observer, I can say that Scerri’s choice of black and white photographs far from reduces the thorny realities of migration to a two-colour, two-sided issue. In fact, through the delicate play on light, shade and shadow, Scerri succeeds in further ‘humanising’ the Ħal Far residents, on both the individual and collective levels. I use the verb ‘to humanise’, and I realise what a terrible paradox this entails. How can one humanise the already human? This is perhaps one of the central responsibilities of the contemporary Maltese artist: to help return to migrants the humanity that they would appear to have automatically forfeited as they laid a foot outside the confines of their national maps, or onto the crowded boat that took them across the waves. Scerri’s juxtaposition of these professional and poignantly human photographs with a selection of online reader comments taken from Maltese newspapers by no means exaggerates the contrast: many Maltese, as their counterparts abroad, attempt to mask their hate behind the term “illegal immigrant”, delegitimising the condition, plight and very existence of the migrant, while seemingly legitimising their own racist outlook (or ‘inlook’). Yet the most important part of the story - that is, of the reality - is in the photographs themselves. On the one hand, we may feel the immediacy of our interaction with the photograph, the immediacy of the migrants’ situation; on the other hand, we may muster some sense of the long, prolonged wait for an opportunity to move on, to continue growing, to spread one’s wings. With that image in mind, take another glance at the profile of the Mediterranean, north-up - this time, your eyes might distinguish a deep-blue bird with a short tail, a long beak, and wings spread wide from Gibraltar to Gaza. And Malta is there, located off the centre of the bird’s chest, perhaps a tiny fishbone piercing its lungs, or a limestone tattoo in its heart.
If I stayed in Mali I would have been killed. I had to escape. I crossed the border into Algeria, then into Libya. I managed to find someone to help me go to Italy, handed him money and he arranged everything for me. Adam, Mali
No matter how heartbreaking their story is, if they fail to get asylum they are to be sent back to their respective countries, no ifs and no buts. Let their stories serve as a deterrent to others. Joanne, Malta
The journey was long, we spent 3 days at sea. The captain looked lost… the boat encountered a few difficulties. In the late hours of the third day we saw lights coming from land, and thinking it was Italy we decided to follow them. When we reached land we were told we had arrived in a place called Malta, we asked whether Malta is a place in Italy, and we were told that it's very close to Italy – so then I thought now I’ll get a train to Italy! I soon realised that there was no train as I was thrown into a cage like an animal. Detention is horrible. I’ve been here in Malta for almost 5 years now, and I still feel like a nobody. Adam, Mali
We fear those who are different from us, we think they’re dangerous and pose a real threat to our values and identity. We keep failing at integrating these people into our ways of life, and we detain them in harsh and unacceptable conditions as a deterrent to others who are thinking of making the same journey. Joseph, Malta
‘87 more migrants rescued’. In other words 87 illegal immigrants are being brought to Malta to be housed and fed at the expense of the Maltese taxpayer and to sow the seeds of untold social problems in the near and distant future. Who’s happy at the arrivals? UNHCR, JRS, no doubt, and all the other dogooder NGOs who have been singing a siren song that is heard on the Libyan coast by thousands if not millions. 275 in two days. If this is not a national emergency I don’t know what is. Can those who are happy about these arrivals please identify themselves? Louise, Malta
We get paid very little money‌ maybe 3 Euros an hour, shifts are long and tough. I usually manage to find work in the fields. When I earn my money I send it back to my wife and children in Guinea, the exchange rate from Euros to Guinean Francs is pretty good, so at least with the little money I earn here my family can live. When I will get my passport from the Maltese government I want to go back to Guinea and see my family, it’s been too long... I call them everyday. Ahmed, Guinea
I fear my sanity will be affected if I keep living the hopeless life I’ve lived since leaving Eritrea. My life hasn’t progressed, and I’m already 30 years old. Malta is a very small country that has nothing to offer to immigrants like me. Leaving Malta for another European country wouldn’t solve any of my problems, I will face more of the same misery and obstacles I’m facing here... America is the only place where I could start a new life. I will keep praying for a better life, my hope lies in Allah. Mahari, Eritrea
Why keep on insisting on forcing immigrants to remain in tiny Malta when they know that we can't integrate them efficiently? You know the answer. It’s not us who’s letting these immigrants down, but the big nations up north. We're only defending our future. Carlos, Malta
While living in Libya I was persecuted because of my faith, whenever they got to know about my name they would immediately realise that I’m a Christian... I saw very bad things in that country. Michael, Eritrea
They are a burden on our society and they should be rounded up and deported, they have no right to be here. Whether you like it or not, they are all illegal immigrants! A. Micallef, Malta
Was it worth making the journey for this life I’m living here now? Well I am safer in Malta, I don’t fear for my life anymore and I have a job in construction, but I’m trapped and can’t go anywhere else without travel documents. I managed to reach the Netherlands from here at one point, life is better over there, but when I applied for asylum the authorities told me that I couldn’t be there and that they needed to send me back to Malta, because the Maltese authorities had my fingerprint. Adam, Mali
I’ve been living in Malta for 9 years. I’ve settled in a flat in Msida, I have a job and I’m happy here. My wife lives in Sweden, she will visit me soon. Bashir, Somalia
It stands to reason – Malta is very small and overpopulated, we cannot cater for large numbers of immigrants. We should supply these immigrants with boats and allow these immigrants freedom of movement. Our European neighbours will welcome these immigrants voluntarily. M. Saliba, Malta
The depth, the silence and the darkness of the Mediterranean’s seabed shall never relieve our conscience. Their memory shall never be forgotten. Their hope for peace and a better life shall never be extinguished. It is for these reasons that the Peace Lab organizes this ceremony. We feel duty-bound to honour the memory of these immigrants while at the same time we take this opportunity to renew our commitment to pursue with our work towards the promotion of peace and social justice in the world. The sacrifice of these immigrants reinvigorates our will to pursue our struggle against injustice, racism, and discrimination. Their memory is a constant reminder of our duty to leave a better world for our children. Fr Dionysius Mintoff, Malta
After the bad experiences I’ve had in Sudan and Libya, I have become less open with others, I am finding it very hard to trust people. I also can’t see the point of myself being photographed for this project... will it change anything for people in my situation? I doubt it. On the other hand, someone has to tell the story. I can’t complain much about life here in Malta, but it’s a small place, there isn’t much here for us. Since I’ve been accepted on a resettlement programme to the US, I simply cannot wait to leave and start a new life in Boston. It’s been good to talk about it all, and not just being a subject for pictures... we’re not animals in a zoo. Samson, Eritrea
Acknowledgements I want to express my enormous gratitude to all those who helped me with this work over the past year – without your presence and support I would have regretfully given up: Fr Dionysius Mintoff OFM and all the residents and staff at Peace Lab (Malta), Fr Joe Cassar SJ and Goitom Yosief at Jesuit Refugee Service (Malta), Kerry Aylin, Brian Cairns, Laura Gonzalez, Lynn Sayers McHattie, Ben Rush, Andy Stark, Paul Stickley and Stuart White at Glasgow School of Art, Antoine Cassar, Sarah Amy Fishlock and Michael Jones. A special thank you goes to my dearest parents Joe and Marcelle, my sister Francesca and my girlfriend Diana, for your endless support. A project funded by Malta Arts Scholarships. Design, Photography and Text Marco Scerri www.marcoscerri.com Introduction Text Antoine Cassar www.antoinecassar.info Typography Set in Geogrotesque designed by Eduardo Manso Emtype Foundry, Barcelona www.emtype.net Printing Newspaper Club, Glasgow/London www.newspaperclub.com Photographs and text Marco Scerri © 2012 Introduction text Antoine Cassar © 2012 All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the author. Published as a first edition of 20 copies in August 2012.
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