The sunken fishing ship upon which more than 1,000 African migrants died in 2015, and which was later displayed at the Venice Biennale, will now be converted into a permanent memorial in Italy.
Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel has turned it into an incendiary monument to the Mediterranean migration crisis as part of the Venice Biennale. He had displayed the ship at the Biennale with the intention of pointing up the migrant crisis engulfing Europe.
Eager for its return was the town of Augusta, the Sicilian city legally responsible for it, which had loaned the vessel to Büchel with the understanding that it would be returned following the exhibition. Its cradle reportedly damaged during shipping, the wreck could not easily be moved, and thus continued to take up space in the Arsenale as Büchel, who was responsible for its transport, wrangled with his shipping company over the damage.
Now, after two years later the vessel was finally delivered, via barge and tugboat, to Augusta. Proud of its reputation as a welcoming seaport, Augusta, a frequent first landing spot for migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, in 2019 lobbied for and was granted custody of the wreck, which it intended to display as a memorial. Once the ship undergoes maintenance, it will stand as a monument to human rights in what city authorities have characterized as a “Garden of Memory.”
Over 1,000 people from Mali, Mauritius, and other African countries died when the ship collided with a Portuguese freighter off the coast of Libya in 2015. Pulled from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea in 2016, the ship has since become a symbol of Europe’s failed policies for accommodating arriving migrants.
