Forensic Oceanography is a collaborative project between Lorenzo Pezzani and Charles Heller in which they "critically investigate the militarised border regime imposed by Europe across the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

". Pezzani is an architect based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and Heller is a film-maker based in

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

. They began in 2011 within

Forensic Architecture Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The ...

. Forensic Oceanography's investigations form the basis of reports and visual interpretations, which have been exhibited in art galleries and at art festivals in Europe.

Projects

''The Left-to-Die Boat'' (2011), about the

European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis, also known internationally as the Syrian refugee crisis, was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million people came to the continent to request ...

, "drew on an astonishing array of surveillance tools to document the case of a distressed migrant boat . .without intervention from nearby Nato vessels, resulting in the death of 63 migrants."

Laura Cumming Laura Cumming is the art critic of '' The Observer'' newspaper, a position she has held since 1999. Before that she worked for '' The Guardian'', the '' New Statesman'' and the BBC. In addition to her career in journalism, Cumming has written we ...

, writing in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

,'' described it as:

a devastating film . .charting the fate of a migrant boat adrift between Tripoli and Lampedusa for 14 days. The vessel is a twinkling light in a liquid blue swirl on the glowing screen before you. Other lights come and go in brilliant constellations. These are the positions of all the many planes, helicopters, Nato vessels and fishermen’s boats that flicker around the migrants but never draw close. A thousand documents could not say as much as this brief and sorrowfully beautiful film in which all the lights fade, leaving only the one little spark which eventually dies away, emblem of what is now known as the Left-to-Die Boat.

''Blaming the Rescuers'' (2017) "dismantled allegations made by agencies such as

Frontex The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex (from French: ''Frontières extérieures'' for "external borders"), is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, exercising in coordination with the border ...

and leading European politicians, who claimed charities were encouraging smugglers to use more dangerous tactics on the treacherous passage between Libya and Italy"; and "the idea that rescues by NGOs are to blame for an increase in migrants crossing."

Group exhibitions

*''Liquid Traces: The Left-to-Die Boat Case'' (2014) film was part of ''From Ear to Ear to Eye,''

Nottingham Contemporary Nottingham Contemporary (formerly known as the Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (CCAN)) is a contemporary art centre in the Lace Market area of Nottingham. The gallery opened in 2009. The gallery describes its site as being "the oldest i ...

, Nottingham, UK, 2018 *''Liquid Violence'' was part of

Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of ...

12, Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 2018 *''The Left-to-die Boat'' and ''Death by Rescue'' were shown as part of ''Counter Investigations,'' an exhibition by

at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA ...

, London, 2018

References

{{Reflist

External links

"Opinion: ‘It’s an Act of Murder’: How Europe Outsources Suffering as Migrants Drown"
''The New York Times,'' December 2018 Goldsmiths, University of London Research organisations in England Forensics organizations