Page - 86 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 2/2016

86 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 2 2o16 Tony Kushner | Lampedusa and the Migrant Crisis other traumatic histories. On the other, it would have been fundamentally wrong to believe I could possibly fully understand in a short visit the everyday dynamics of Lampedusa – an island which has been subject to continuous and often abrupt change throughout its many thousands of years of human habitation, now into the twenty first century. Undoubtedly, one of the most power- ful moments of my visit was to the island’s informal and alternative museum of migration. Porto M in its deliberately understated way, emphasises this commo- nality yet also the political responsibility demanded by Flanagan that connects ‘us’ (the visitor) – to ‘them’ (the migrants). The museum has no text and lets the objects speak for themselves. Francesca, one of the collective, insists ‘definitely without labels. We can’t speak for the migrants’.100 Indeed, their very ordinariness needs no introduction. The exterior and interior are lined with fragments of the migrant boats that have arrived or been towed into the port of Lampedusa where Porto M is located, their pastel shades providing an aesthetic beauty that initially disguises the loss of life they represent. Although the port is small and everything within walking distance, Porto M is tucked into a quiet corner and is less prominent within the tourist gaze – even neighbouring restaurants see- med unaware of its existence. It contrasts, for example, to the main and popular tourist beach of Lampedusa town where until recently the ‘graveyard of boats’ were stacked high on the other side of the harbourside road.101 These boats are now reduced to a handful, their Arabic writing (they were originally from Libya and Tunisia) the only hint of their previous role. Otherwise, they could easily be mistaken for abandoned local fishing boats. The removal of most of this ‘graveyard’ was, it seems, a deliberate move from the island authorities which, whilst not denying evidence of the migrant crisis in which Lampedusa became so central, does not want it to dominate to the detriment of a tourist trade that has yet to fully develop (its EU funded re-built airport, for example, is substantial but limited at present to several somewhat unreliable flights a day to Sicily and mainland Italy). Most of the boats were removed to a wasteland in the middle of the island, including their contents. From there 100 Eithne Nightingale, ‘Lovely Lampedusa and PortoM, M for Mediterranean, Migration, Memory or Militarisation?’, Chirps from around the world, 13 June 2015, https://eithnenightingale.wordpress.com/tag/ lampedusa, accessed 30 July 2016. 101 See Christian Sinibaldi’s 2008 photographs ‘Boat Cemetary [sic]’ which vividly portray the number and crumbling nature of these vessels. Fig. 18: Toiletries and everyday objects, Porto M, Photo: Tony Kushner