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NOWHERE NEAR

The migrant’s journey is a long one, night after night, inching toward the horizon like constellations. Not just typical stars, they are high-velocity stars, ejected at hyper speed by black holes, sprinkled across the cosmos by the force of their propulsion. And these scattered stars, in their crossing, are like the migrants that I met across in Italy, France and the UK who had come from Nigeria, The Gambia, and Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Congo, Rwanda, Congo, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, Sierra Leone and Guinea, across Europe, pursuing the dream. In the choral testimony of the voices I collected over the last four years, the celestial constellation is one of young Africans from different countries, of different genders and with different traits, a testament to the individuality and diversity that they each embody. Some young migrants aimed to reach Libya from southern countries, often finding a dead end in prison. Others aimed at Europe’s El Dorado; many found it, despite sacrifices, its promise intact. Others met a dreadful reality - the dream they had long harbored, treasured on those endless nights of travel, shattered.

 

Millions of immigrants from Africa officially reside in Europe, as well as an unknown number of undocumented migrants, many of whom have made a perilous and often life-threatening journey to get there. The photographer compares migrants in Italy to scattered stars, a constellation of young people from different countries, of different genders, and with different traits. They have all come to Europe for different personal reasons and, in this project, are celebrated  for their individual stories, in a way that tries to resist stereotyping of African migrants. A 2016 study by the International Organization of Migrants pointed to insecurity, conflict, and discrimination as the main drivers of migration, not solely economic and work reasons. Discrimination on the basis of social group, religion, or sexual orientation was mentioned by almost half of the study group. 

 

This project was made possible thanks to support of Magenta Foundation's UNSTUCK grant and Planches Contact's Tremplins Jeunes Talents Artist-in-residency program.

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