Banu Cennetoğlu: ’As long as I have resources, I will make The List more visible’ | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/banu-cennetoglu-interview-turkish-artist-the-list-europe-migrant-crisis
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▻http://unitedagainstrefugeedeaths.eu/about-the-campaign/fortress-europe-death-by-policy
he artist Banu Cennetoğlu can remember precisely the moment she was overwhelmed by the List, a catalogue, made by volunteers, of those who had died in their attempt to make a new life in Europe. It was 2002. She was based at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, studying photography. Researching the architecture of border posts for a project, she stumbled across it on the website of United for Intercultural Action, a network of NGOs supporting migrants and refugees. Back then, it was a document of 15 pages and 6,000 names; now it has over 30,000. “I started to read, and that was it,” she says. It was the start of a relationship that still continues in all its original fervour. “I know,” she adds, “that as long as I have resources as an artist I will continue to make this list more visible.”
Cennetoğlu, an intense, warm woman in her mid-40s, immediately realised that she wanted – needed – people to encounter the List, in all its terrible rawness and cumulative power. She printed it out and pressed it on to people she met, left copies in cafes, made stickers and stuck them on ATMs around the city. It didn’t seem enough. She liked the idea of hiring billboards – not enormous hoardings but the kind of eye-level, poster-size advertising sites that were dotted around Amsterdam. The question was where to get the money, though that seemed easy enough – the Netherlands, at the time, had plenty of money for artists. “But then there were five years of constant attempts and they all failed,” she says. The conversations with potential funders played out repetitively. “People would ask me, ‘Is it an artwork?’ I would reply that it wasn’t. And they would say, ‘Well, if it’s not art, we cannot give you the money.’”
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The Guardian publishes the full UNITED List of 34,361 Refugee Deaths on 20 June International Refugee Day
In recognition of World Refugee day, The Guardian, in collaboration with artist Banu Cennetoglu, Chisenhale Gallery and Liverpool Biennial is distributing the full UNITED ’List of Deaths’ in its print and online edition.
Since 1993, UNITED for Intercultural Action has recorded the reported names, origins and causes of death for more than 34,000 refugees and migrants who have died whilst trying to get into Europe due to the restrictive policies of “Fortress Europe”. The List, which currently contains 56 pages of names, will be included in full in print and available to download on The Guardian’s as well as the UNITED website.
In a 64-page print supplement, The List is accompanied by thought pieces covering how the shape of the refugee crisis has changed over the years. There are also case studies taking a deeper look behind some of the names of those listed and an interview with artist Banu Cennetoglu, who since 2007, facilitates distribution of the List around the world.
Free of charge copies of the newspaper with the 64-page supplement will be available at Chisenhale Gallery (28 June-26 August 2018) and Liverpool Biennial (14 July-28 October 2018).
UNITED Campaign “Fatal Policies of Fortress Europe”: No More Deaths - Time for Change!
Fortress Europe is nearly impenetrable. Several deals made over the last years, such as the EU-Turkey deal or the more recent Italy-Libya deal, as well as the continued construction of walls and fences increasingly close routes to a life in safety. As a last chance, many are forced to choose a journey of life and death crossing the Mediterranean. However, most Lifeseekers don’t get to the other side of the Mediterranean. Refugees die suffocated in trucks, crossing rivers and mountains or are shot by guards. They die due to the inhumane conditions of detention centers or lack of medical assistance, commit suicide out of despair, or are killed after being deported to their country. They are denied both protection of our authorities and recourse to justice. Rescue boats are stranded on the Mediterranean for weeks while their passengers try to survive under inhumane conditions until an EU member state agrees to accept them at their port, such as in the recent case of the Aquarius. As diverse as they may seem, all of these deaths are direct results of EU border militarization, asylum laws, detention policies and deportations.
Many national governments throughout Europe have shifted to the right and changes in asylum legislation follow suit. Afghanistan today is categorised as a safe country of origin to deport people to, whereas European citizens are not advised to travel there claiming the country is one of the most dangerous in the world. Such explicit double standards are persistent and established in migration legislation throughout the European Union. Italy’s recent deal with Libya has resulted in severe human rights violations by the Libyan coast guards and increased the risk of [refugees to be subject to] human trafficking.
Every human has the right to look for a safe place to live, and the EU needs to establish secure access and humane treatment for those seeking refuge in Europe. We demand that death by policy ends and all member states provide safety and dignity for all as a minimum standard of human rights.
Mark Rice-Oxley, special projects editor, Guardian News & Media, said:
“This List of Deaths is a startling and heroic piece of work by UNITED for Intercultural Action. It exposes a terrifying truth of mounting human misery, of utterly preventable death stretching back more than 25 years - and of a failure of imagination by the world’s biggest bloc of liberal democracies. That is why The Guardian is publishing it in full on 20 June.”
Banu Cennetoglu, artist, said:
“I believe the power of printed material and its possible impact especially in the case of this List. I hope the dissemination and the contextualisation through The Guardian and its editors will remind people of the capacity they do have in order to interfere with those fatal policies and their makers.”
Geert Ates, UNITED, said:
“Since 1993, we have recorded the names and incidents of refugee deaths to draw public attention to the deadly consequences of the building of a Fortress Europe. The dissemination of our full list by the world’s leading newspaper, The Guardian, on World Refugee Day, will help UNITED enormously to find wider support for the necessary change of policies: No More Deaths! Time for Change!”
For more information, please contact:
Geert Ates (UNITED)
+31-6-48808808
listofdeaths@unitedagainstracism.org
#migrations #asile #Réfugiés #mourir_en_mer #forteresse_europe