Capo Portiere Bonjour, 2010
Video HD, colour, sound, transferred on blu ray disc
6’ 

The video shows a fishing vessel, aground on one of the beaches off the seaside town of Latina; in the background is Mount Circeo at dawn, and the sound is that of the sea water hitting the boat. 

Monday October 4th, 2010. Sunrise. On the coastline of Latina (Lazio), at Capo Portiere, an empty twenty metres fishing boat from Africa left with the engines on, aground. Camouflaged with fishing nets, fish boxes and ice in the bulk, the boat navigated – with her human cargo – undetected through territorial waters, reaching so far North for the first time. The place itself is a mythological one, connected to the epic of Aeneas and the history of Rome. A group of people reaches the Italian coast at dawn. As a ghost vessel, the boat appears in the daylight, abandoned, stranded on land. Some of the refugees are found and brought to refugee shelters; some of them declared political prisoners, some others find freedom. 

Courtesy the artist and Magazzino, Rome