The Lines and Shades of Migration in 'Melita, מלט −mlṭ, refuge'

A survey of contemporary discourses on migration reveals the striking framing of this natural human behaviour in terms of crisis. In its turn, this so-called human(itarian) crisis conjures a complex network of concepts and terms that orbit around notions such as management, control, governance, etc. The result of such discourses is often twofold: on the one hand, it oversimplifies human mobility and condenses it in a rhetoric of securitisation and surveillance; and, on the other hand, uses this rhetoric to not only raise concerns about migration but also to attempt to immobilise humans. Borders, camps, and extremely marginalised shanties surface as the present-day normalised spaces of migration where people, unfit for social integration, are trapped awaiting their biodegradation. 1 In this context, Anne Immelé’s 'Melita, מלט −mlṭ, refuge' comes as a visual objection and resistance to discourses of immobilisation. Her photographic project reintroduces movement and mobility to migration through a simple, and never simplistic, use of lines and shades that enable the spectator to transport her gaze through space and time.