Dear friends and followers of UNITED,
We are in peak summer. Many of us are preparing for vacations, travel, and some much needed time off, ready to switch off from the barrage of worldwide bad news from recent times. Before we can fully commit to this recharge period however, it's time to take stock of the time we at UNITED honor the most - June 20th, World Refugee Day.
This year, our list count came to 48,647 dead at the borders of Fortress Europe since 1993.
Most have drowned in the Mediterranean. Others were shot down at border posts. Men, women, teens, kids and babies For most refugees, Europe is a stronghold. Hundreds of thousands of people are currently living in deplorable conditions and camps on the external borders of Europe.
This year, UNITED, in co-operation with Beim Namen nennen has published the updated list, which is now being used in activist actions throughout Europe.
What were some of these actions?
#numbersintonames - First mobile cinema in Senegal, for the families of missing migrants.
This was a film that was inspired by the UNITED list of deaths, and it was titled, #387.
In #387, a team of forensic pathologists, humanitarian workers, and refugee activists fight to restore the identity of the migrants who died on April 18th, 2015 – the deadliest shipwreck ever recorded in the Mediterranean Sea.
The film is now dubbed in wolof, bambara and soninké.
#387 was the starting point of an international impact campaign called
#numbersintonames. This campaign has culminated into the first ever mobile cinema in Dakar, Senegal for families of missing migrants scattered across the globe, from Western Africa to Pakistan, with little to no access to documentary films.
In Berlin, Germany, an event called "Dying on the path of hope – every name counts" was held on 18 June - 20 June 2022: 44 hours of reading names in the Passion Church. This was a commemorative campaign held in conjunction across the city - see the list of Churches here.
In Terschelling, Netherlands, thousands of memorial signs were placed on the beach to remember more than 48,000 people who died on European borders. This memorial was organizaed by MiGreat.
In Amsterdam, an exhibition was held from the 3 June - 10 July, on "The Source of Life and Destruction - water."
In particular, an exhibit by Iranian-Dutch artist, Tina Farifteh. Prompted by her intense personal response to the news of the devastating fire at the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos in September 2020, in this thesis visual artist Tina Farifteh asks the question, what is empathy? And, more importantly, what is it good for? How does our response to images of suffering and devastation affect our attitudes and our ability to act?
Upcoming:
Arkadi Zaides will be part of the cycle of performances "How to tell many stories?" at the Brussels-based Kaaitheater.
On October 28 and 29, he will perform his latest creation NECROPOLIS, which takes our list as a starting point.
Arkadi Zaides and his team delve into the practice of forensics to conceive a new virtual database documenting the remains of those whose death is to this day mostly unacknowledged. This growing archive, this map, this site named NECROPOLIS is stretching in all directions across space and time, interrelating the mythologies, histories, geographies, movements, and anatomies of those who have been granted entrance to the city of the dead.
And you? How did you commemorate the day? Write to us at [email protected], and have your work featured on our website and social media.
Until then, we are taking a break for the summer - we will rejoin you in September.
