Where does one begin to show the plight of thousands who attempt to reach Malta on rickety vessels? Darrin Zammit Lupi tells Veronica Stivala about a project that has been over 10 years in the making.
It was a cold, wet and windy December day in 1998. A Russian survey ship had rescued 52 Africans and brought them into Grand Harbour. They were in a pretty bad shape; several had to be carried off the ship on stretchers.
Darrin Zammit Lupi, a Times of Malta and Reuters photographer, remembers this day clearly. It was the day he took his first photo in what was to be the start of over a decade of rigorous reporting of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who fled their homes.
Isle Landers is a photographic art project, 10 years in the making, based on Zammit Lupi’s experience as a photojournalist, documenting the lives of asylum seekers and migrants through and after their journey across the Mediterranean Sea. The project has been materialising throughout 2014 across different platforms including a blog, an art exhibition and the publication of a book.
Together with its accompanying book, the exhibition covers everything from rescues at sea, life in detention camps and right through to refugees being permanently resettled in the US and Europe.
The aim of this project has been to explore the development and impact of artistic photography on the public through different platforms. Zammit Lupi says the project has made him realise what a thirst there is for powerful documentary photography that goes deeper into issues than a daily newspaper can.
“It’s always bugged me that a fantastic photograph I might take would appear in the newspaper and then be used to wrap someone’s fish and chips the following day, so to speak,” he says.
A regularly updated website, and more so, a book, preserves those images for posterity. The feedback, both locally and from abroad, has been extremely positive. The project and its photos have helped bring the story to a greater number of people.
Finding himself face to face, up close, to one of the world’s major ongoing tragedies, Zammit Lupi cannot but be affected by what he sees. This year alone, 3,000 of the 4,000 migrants believed to have died globally this year, perished while crossing the Mediterranean.
“Regardless of what people say about the real or imagined dangers of multiculturalism, integration, migration and so on, there are a couple of simple truths – no one deserves to die at sea and most of these people are fleeing active war zones or persecution and so need some form of protection,” he says.
A resulting curiosity about Africa soon developed
At the same time, Zammit Lupi has got to know some wonderful people and has learnt about their cultures. A resulting curiosity about Africa soon developed into a deep fascination with the place, and he has since travelled round several parts of the continent shooting for a couple of NGOs.
Although Zammit Lupi admits there are many particular occasions that stand out in his mind, he elaborates on one because it was the most recent and one during which he went one step further with his pictures, getting closer in the way he covered the rescue.
This was his recent trip on the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (Moas) ship Phoenix. Because he was a volunteer crew member, he felt very closely involved. “Participating in the rescue of 106 boat people who would have certainly died if we hadn’t found them is undoubtedly something special.” Again, there are many photos that are particularly dear to the photographer, but if he had to pick two he would pick the ones of two refugees he got to know.
One shows the young Palestinian-Syrian boy Hamad Alroosan arriving after last year’s second Lampedusa tragedy. Over the year that he spent here, Zammit Lupi got to know him and see the incredible transformation in him. Seeing him some months later during a school sports day, fully integrated with his classmates, speaking fluent English and having the time of his life, was a moving experience.
The other one shows a young Sudanese man, Zakaria Al Noor, with the Maltese family which had ‘adopted’ him. His story and his extremely positive attitude to life have impressed Zammit Lupi.
He photographed him the day before he left for Germany for resettlement. Sadly, just over a year ago, he passed away suddenly. It just felt so wrong – after everything he had been through. Zammit Lupi decided it would only be fitting to dedicate the book in his memory.
Zammit Lupi is extremely grateful to all the people and entities which have helped him to bring this project to fruition – colleagues at Times of Malta, Reuters, as well within the AFM, Moas, UNHCR, and friends across the world, his exhibition curator Fabrizio Mifsud Soler and the migrants and refugees themselves.
Isle Landers is supported by the Malta Arts Fund and UNHCR and opens at St James Cavalier, Valletta, on Saturday and runs till January 4. The book will be available from Saturday.