Go to the photos at Umbruch Bildarchiv.
In a joint dialogue lasting around a year, the artists and the boat crew developed a design concept and came up with central motifs and slogans. The boat for refugees in emergency at sea should be clearly recognisable from afar as solidarity aid, among other things through large yellow lettering in Arabic (‘We are here for you’). The central large inscriptions are ‘Solidarity’ and ‘Resistance’, an allusion to SAR (Search And Rescue). A fist made up of more than 2,000 names of people who have lost their lives because of the EU’s isolationist policy was printed on the front sail.
The project was made possible in part by donations from the Beyond Borders Festival. It took place for the second time on 24 August 2024 in Görlitzer Park in Berlin-Kreuzberg to support initiatives that fight for the rights of migrants and refugees at the borders or in Berlin.
The Imara has been operating as an observation and aid ship in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and Libya since late summer 2021. Like other civilian organisations, they also want to help save people from drowning on the ground. r42 is part of a steadily growing network of civilian SearchAndRescue NGOs.
Repression against sea rescue initiatives is steadily increasing and escape routes are being blocked more and more by brutal isolation measures. In many European countries, right-wing to fascist parties are increasingly in government. Of course, painting a lifeboat is insignificant compared to actually rescuing people. But it is a good addition. If civil sea rescue should one day no longer be possible, there will at least be pictures of the scene of the crime in the Mediterranean – with the demands and content of people who do not want to accept these conditions.
Links
- https://r42-sailtraining.org/
- https://www.instagram.com/beyondborders.festival/
- https://www.instagram.com/r42_sailandrescue/