Artivism and death: Necropolis

Abstract

Necropolis is an artistic activistic project that gives rise to a ghostly cartography. The project emerged upon discovering a database recording the deaths of migrants who tried to enter Europe. This list was produced in the last decades by a network of organisations and activists all around Europe. Necropolis is constructed through the search for and the mapping of the burial grounds of those who lost their lives at the gate of the continent. ּThrough its process, the project joins the goals of the network and makes the information in the database more precise and complete. As such it promotes a non extractivist relation with the source material from which it stems. The project acts as a crossroad for different activists and organisations. Moreover, it engages in advocacy work and pushes legal claims to ensure that the bodies are properly processed, in accordance with the rights of the dead. It aspires to legally ensure that all the possible measures are taken in order to allow the future identification of the dead.