Photography, Landscape and Memories in the 'Images We Do not Want to See' of Immigrant Deaths in the Current Mediterranean

Abstract

The artistic, cultural and media representations of multi-planetary migratory dramas deal with, at the same time, various series of images that circulate, activating memories, senses and affections. The work proposes a discussion on a specific set of photos, made in the Mediterranean, at different times in which the intensity of the visualization on the deaths of immigrants and refugees reaches a figurative and photographic apex. Characterized by the increasing visibility of the images associated with border crossing processes in their limit situation, the intensity of the photographs takes up questions about the boundaries of visual representations and the 'duties of memory', found, for example, in the images of the Holocaust. Using a socio-critical analysis of the images as the main method, the article tries to think about the encoding of the images associated with the Mediterranean journey, observing them as opposed to the need to think about art, visuality and testimony.