Nonsense Democracy
YEAR
2008
Route
Milano > Genova > Barçelona > Algeciras > Ceuta > Marrakesh > Dakhla > Nouadhibou > Atar > Nouakchott > Bamako > Mopti > Timbouktou
Identity and landscape
Filippo Minelli embarked on a month-long journey from Europe to Timbuktu, the heart of the Sahel region in Western Africa. Timbuktu, long romanticized by foreigners as an exotic and remote destination, is also known as a critical hub for radical Islamic separatist movements. These groups are often financed by illegal activities, including arms smuggling, drug trafficking, and the human trafficking of unauthorized immigrants seeking to cross into Europe. The complex and perilous migration routes that lead from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe are central to Minelli’s exploration.
Some of these routes cross the vast Sahara Desert, eventually reaching the Mediterranean Sea, while others follow the Atlantic coastline where migrants embark on dangerous sea voyages, risking their lives to reach European shores. Minelli traced his own travel along these two primary migration routes, documenting the landscape and human conditions through both digital and instant photography. His project is an attempt to capture not only the stark reality of these journeys but also the socio-political undercurrents that shape them.
As part of his research, Minelli created two temporary interventions that engage with the geopolitics and ironies surrounding migration, borders, and European imperialism. The first intervention was a provocative fence placed in the ‘no-man’s land’ between Mali and Mauritania, an area that exemplifies the absurdity of modern borders drawn arbitrarily by colonial powers. This intervention draws attention to the militarization of European borders and the irrationality of national boundaries that, to this day, continue to be contested by various Islamic groups. The fence is a symbol of the paradox of contemporary border security—an ineffective and disjointed system that serves to further entrench the division between the Global South and the North, without addressing the underlying issues driving migration.
Minelli’s second intervention occurred in the coastal city of Nouadhibou, one of the main departure points for migrants attempting to reach Europe by sea. Nouadhibou, however, is not only a transit point for migrants; it is also a dumping ground for decommissioned Western ships. These ships are abandoned there by foreign companies and then left to decay, a process facilitated by widespread corruption within the local authorities. Officially, the boats are supposed to stay for only a limited period, but they often remain for years. During this time, young local boys, desperate for work, begin to illegally dismantle the boats, selling the steel for profit. They pay bribes to corrupt officials in exchange for the right to work on these derelict ships.
It was in this context that Minelli installed his second intervention, titled Democracy, where a boat was placed in the port as a symbolic commentary on the tragic realities of global inequality and the commodification of human lives. A week after Minelli’s Democracy installation, a coup d’état took place in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital. The timing of the coup coincided precisely with the moment when local boys began dismantling the Democracy boat for its steel—a poignant, if unintentional, metaphor for the cycles of exploitation, violence, and corruption that characterize both local and global systems of power.
Minelli’s project explores the stark contrasts between globalized economic systems and the lived realities of those on the margins. His interventions raise questions about the contradictions embedded in the politics of borders, migration, and the global economy, pointing to the unresolved historical legacies of colonialism and the failures of contemporary political systems to address the root causes of migration. Through his work, Minelli challenges the viewer to confront the human cost of geopolitical decisions, the systemic inequalities that shape our world, and the often invisible forces driving migration.