First Laurel Gate - August 19, 2016
”In a heat daze, a kind of sun fever, I began to tear branches off the overgrown olive shrubs and weave them tightly around the fence opening, making sort of a laurel gate, so the hole, now adorned, looked like a ritual passage site. As if it could ground me, free me, sweaty in a cloud of cricket sounds.”
Passo della Morte, hole in the fence that marks French-Italian border, rich with history of crossings by anti-fascists who fled Mussolini, including Sandro Pertini, Jews fleeing anti-Semitism, Yugoslavs fleeing genocide and war, Tunisians from the tumult of the Arab Spring, and now migrants from Africa who seek a passage after crossing the sea.
Contributed by
Elka Krajewska + Gregor Neuerer