Art and Representations in/of Exile: Marseille and Lampedusa 

 

Date: October 9-10, 2025

​

Venue: The American College of the Mediterranean, Aix-en-Provence

​

Language: English

​​​

Workshop Organizers:

• Dr. Yumna Masarwa, The American College of the Mediterranean (ACM, Aix-en-Provence)

• Dr. Erin Yunes, The American College of the Mediterranean (ACM, Aix-en-Provence)

• Dr. Francesco Colin, The American College of the Mediterranean (ACM, Aix-en-Provence)

• Mr. Matthew Gernt, The American College of the Mediterranean (ACM, Aix-en-Provence)

​

About Thanatic Ethics:

Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces, began with a single question: What happens to the bodies of migrants who perish on foreign shores, often while making perilous journeys across land and sea in search of better lives? The migration crisis in recent years has modified our perspective on the deaths in migration, at sea or on land. Recent works have sought to quantify the number of casualties (Heller and Pécoud 2017; Sapkota et al. 2006). Others strive to retrieve the identity of these people in the thin traces they left behind (Kobelinsky and Le Courant 2017; Cattaneo 2018). And when nothing material is left, what endures is the memory of tragic wrecking, commemorated by plaques, monuments or art pieces, in the wake of earlier dumping of bodies overboard in colonial and slavery contexts.

https://www.thanaticethics.com

​

Project Co-convenors:

Dr Bidisha Banerjee (IRCCS, The Education University of Hong Kong)

Dr Thomas Lacroix (Sciences Po-CERI)

Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak (EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3)

​

About TE Workshop #5:​

Workshop #5 will explore how artistic practices engage with migration and exile, with the witnessing of death in migration, and its diverse representations. Beyond discussing the role of art and artists in migration and exile, this workshop investigates how activists, scholars, researchers, and other actors engage with artistic practices in this field. For instance, this includes academic inquiries on the representation of migration and exile in mainstream media and online fora, political discourse, and policymaking. Concurrently, this workshop explores how community organizations and advocacy groups rely on art and collaborate with artists in their activism, while also creating a space to discuss how artists in exile transpose their experiences into artistic practices.

 

The focus on two specific sites, Lampedusa and Marseille, is deliberate. Lampedusa, as a key point of arrival and humanitarian crisis, has become symbolic of both the hope and tragedy of migration, raising questions about representation, witnessing, and accountability. Not only did this small island become a common element in the trajectory of many migrants and refugees that reached Europe’s shores, but it also produced a wealth of images that framed mainstream social and political debates on migration and exile. Meanwhile, Marseille—a city that upholds migration as a core part of its founding identity— provides numerous opportunities to observe the contradictions around migration and exile. Its population has been shaped by centuries of migration, which exponentially increased as Marseille became a pivotal point in France’s colonial empire in the Mediterranean. As a city that is either represented as an exemplary case of multiculturalism and integration, capable of welcoming migrants and refugees regardless of their origin, or a place of segregation and intractable socio-economic divisions, Marseille provides the invaluable opportunity of investigating how cultural production documents, challenges, and influences the experiences of exile and settlement.

 

​