32,790 (and Counting)

Forensic memorial for the migrants who have died in the Mediterranean since 2014

Untitled (Newborn) 10

The title of this series is a number. 32,790. It is the figure recorded by the Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration at the moment I began this work. It is a figure that, the instant it is read, is already inexact, because the deaths continue. The QR code accompanying each piece links directly to the live source, so that the contrast between the work’s frozen number and the system’s present number operates as part of the argument. When the tragedy leaps from the title to the updated figure, something happens in the way we look.

Ten forensic works made with Mediterranean seawater, antiseptics, forensic materials, and charcoal on paper. They are not representations. They are remains. Fragments of a collective necrology without names, without graves, without recognized mourning.

Each work bears a logistics label, of the kind Amazon or Zara use to track merchandise, with a QR code linking to the live Mediterranean data. The system that optimizes the transit of objects here documents the interrupted transit of lives. But the label does something more. It marks the work with a monetary value.

The price of each work operates within the vocabulary of the Value of Statistical Life (VSL), the metric that governments and international organizations use to quantify human lives in cost-benefit analyses. The VSL is neither a single nor a universal number. The United States sets it at some 13.7 million dollars per life. Europe handles it in a range of 2 to 5 million euros depending on the country. In countries of the Global South the calculations are far lower where they exist at all (Mali 456,000 USD, Senegal 816,000 USD, Eritrea 319,000 USD, Somalia 224,000 USD, Morocco 1.65 million USD), and in many cases they are not even calculated. The same species, a different price. In many cases, none. The price of the work operates within that vocabulary in order to make it visible, not to reproduce it.

This work applies what I call geothanatology, the study of the relationship between death, disappearance, and geographical space in contexts of structural violence, especially forced migration. The full framework is developed in the essay Geothanatology (2025), available in the Texts section. Geothanatology does not merely describe where migrants die, but how the territory itself takes part in the production, concealment, and signification of that death. The Mediterranean is not a natural grave. It is a policy with waves that buries lives.

10% of the net sale price of originals and prints is allocated to organizations working in rescue, documentation, and advocacy in the Mediterranean.

The ten works

Series "32,790 and counting": "last drawing", schematic figure on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of sunken sails on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of a collapsed body on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of a newborn on paper; minimal line.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of a limb on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of a floating body on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of a reaching hand on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing of an organ piece on paper.

Series "32,790 and counting": drawing on paper of a head; schematic line.

Serie "32,790 and counting": drawing on paper of an inverted body; minimal line on a neutral ground.

Details

The ten pieces share the same paper protocol: folded, submerged in the Mediterranean, air-dried for 24 hours, forensic intervention. Listed in the order of the series numbering.

Untitled (Inverted Body) 01, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide and charcoal on paper. 49.8 × 32.5 cm.
Untitled (Head) 02, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and charcoal on paper. 49.4 × 34.7 cm.
Untitled (Organ Piece) 03, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and colored pencils on paper. 40.2 × 29 cm.
Untitled (Reaching Hand) 04, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, ink and charcoal on paper. 61 × 46.7 cm.
Untitled (Extremity) 05, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, ink, charcoal and colored pencils on paper. 49.4 × 34.7 cm.
Untitled (Floating Body) 06, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and white chalk on paper. 39.5 × 29.3 cm.
Untitled (Last Drawing) 07, 2025. Mixed media on paper (“mixed colors of dreams”). 49 × 34.7 cm.
Untitled (Sunken Sails) 08, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and colored pencils on paper. 34.7 × 49.2 cm.
Untitled (Collapsed Body) 09, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and colored pencils on paper. 48.6 × 61 cm.
Untitled (Newborn) 10, 2025. Mediterranean seawater, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, industrial enamel, ink and charcoal on paper. 32.2 × 49.5 cm.

Missing Migrants Project (Mediterranean, live source)
Read the essay Geothanatology