I arrive in Libya for the first time in December of 2014. First at Ras-Jedir, on the border with Tunisia, then to Zuwara, a city known for transporting immigrants by boat to Italy, known for shipwrecks. Known for those who live the fifty-fifty: life or death. I meet 26-year-old Yunes in Zuwara. He’s a telecommunications engineer who became a fixer for journalists. He also fought in the 2014 war. At our first meeting, Younes asked me an upsetting but pertinent question: “Are you here for the migrants or the war?” It is upsetting as it displays what motivates the media, and their interests in his country; it is pertinent, frank and direct, as it describes the political context: is it possible to dissociate the war and the plight of migrants? Built as an installation, this exhibition brings its audience into a narrative where the relation between visibility and invisibility plays out among those that live here, and those that find themselves here, for better or for worse.
Samuel Gratacap