Page - 90 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 2/2016

90 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 2 2o16 Tony Kushner | Lampedusa and the Migrant Crisis king so carefully about what, and what not to display, there is a sensitivity and reflexivity here which is lacking in many Holocaust exhibitions which present the victims (often in a naked and/or distressed state immediately before or after murder), without thought for the ethical implications of such representation. Porto M is a migration museum like no other. It has not the polish of those in Europe or settler communities across the world. But it is also free of the redemptive message that many possess which tend to glorify migrant receiving nations in their acceptance and ultimate assimi- lation. In Lampedusa town itself this is only perhaps to be found in the tourist information cen- tre where wooden crosses made of the boats’ fragments are sold with a Christocentric message almost as if they were relics from the Passion itself: ‘Take it with you as a sign of the resurrection that comes from pain’.113 Porto M is identified from the outside by a small plastic inflatable globe that hangs outside its boatwood door. Its flimsy nature is a fitting tribute to the message of the exhibition – a world that is unstable, liable to implode but ultimately mutually dependent and requiring a shift in attitudes and behaviour to survive. In its understated manner – in spite of or perhaps better because of its limited budget – Porto M captures the power politics behind the migrant crisis. This is, after all, a man made and not a natural disaster. It is locally rooted – the visitor need only look through its door to see the Mediterranean and the human misery that has happened at its doorstep – yet globally focused in its ethical gaze. It is a singular achievement within and way beyond the migrant museum. There remains, however, a tension with regard to the absence of the individual migrant in Porto M: or rather the insistence of the Askavusa collective not to personalise (beyond the everyday nature of the lost items forcing the visitor to understand that these belonged to an ordinary people) necessitates a dialogue of how the migrant presence is dealt with. Rather than a particular critique of Porto M, it reflects a wider tendency in the gro- wing artistic and cultural responses to the global crisis in which Lampedusa became symbolic: migrants, at best, are seen, but not heard. The islanders of Lampedusa have made space in their crowded cemetery for the migrants who were washed up on its shores or whose bodies were rescued in local boats. Apart from the genorosity and inclusivity of such actions, all effort has been made to provide as much detail as possible about the deceased. Where there is no name, at least gender, possible place of origin and age, and the particular maritime tragedy they were part of are included in these simple but deeply moving acts of memory for the ‘unknown migrant’. They are personal but also the first act of historicisation of a mass movement that in so many cases leaves not a trace. The graves are not separated out in the cemetery but intermingled with those of the locals. Given the role of the local boatmen in saving migrants and rescuing bodies of the drowned or suffocated, it seems appropriate that they are situated amongst the most prominent tombstones of the cemetery which commemorate the deceased’s fishing triumphs in words and photographs.114 There are, of course, no images of these migrants before their death which singles them out from the other recent burials in the cemetery. But the attempt to provide as much informa- 113 Author visit, 4 August 2015. This is not to minimise the importance of the local Catholic church in helping the migrants and the key role of the Pope himself in bringing to the world’s attention the scale of the migrant crisis as represented by Lampedusa. 114 Author visit, 5 August 2015.