Thousands of Sub-Saharan migrants are trapped in Morocco – mandatory end of the line, contention dam for Europe. They dwell in the hills surrounding the border with Melilla, waiting for their trip, dealt by sea, to come through. At Mount Gurugú, they live out in the open in makeshift settlements, made out of plastic sheets, branches and rope, waiting to cross over the border. These communities have been stigmatized and marginalized, subject to rejection and institutionalized violence.

The first stage of the project began with a cartography exercise, assembled from the accounts of several clandestine migrants – together with the assistance of three organizations who support them – in order to reconstruct the path that they must follow through the eastern Moroccan desert. 

On the second stage, a plaster-cast reproduction of a cayuco (small fishing vessel used frequently by clandestine migrants) was carried through the desert in the span of several days, reproducing the route previously mapped with the organizations. The path starts from the – closed – border with Algeria, near Oujda, to the Spanish enclave of Melilla. By virtue of being dragged directly on the ground, the sculpture wears itself little by little under the weight of its own march, tracing at the same time, as a reminder, the white trail of its path. Thus the cayuco becomes a cartographic tracing tool, projecting a life-sized, ephemeral cartography of its path towards Mount Gurugú. The journey ends with the encounters of those people who the precariousness of their exodus has dragged to this mountain, set on the edge of the Melilla border, where many of them have been hiding for several years already, waiting for the moment when they’ll be able to cross to the other side.

Courtesy of the artist and ADN Galeria