The Passage

On the far end of Grimaldi, the last Italian village before France, a small path goes right, towards the mountain. Surrounded by wild vegetation, it narrows and steepens. Used in the past by smugglers, Jewish refugees, and political opponents running from persecution to cross the border clandestinely, it is now used by migrants from Africa, the Middle, and Far East, escaping conflicts and poverty. Throughout the years, people have lost their lives amongst those sharp hills and abrupt cliffs. And in the 1960s, the newspapers coined its nickname: “Il passeo dela morte” (the deadly path). Still, at night small groups of people leave in the cover of darkness to “try their luck”, taking with them only the essentials, and turning on a flashlight or mobile phone intermittently to reveal the way ahead. In this series, I captured the traces, writings, and objects that testify to their passage. Pieces in the fragmented account of their exile, they evoke the migrants experience, between hope and despair, of traversing a foreign and inhospitable environment, heading towards the unknown.