PORT Street of the World

Near Spain’s northern border with France is a seaside town called Port. In the off-season, the town is nearly deserted, unrecognizable from its summer heyday when windsurfers, caravanners and middle-class families from Barcelona come to the town, tripling its population overnight. Another community has made Port its home – a group of migrants from Senegal. These men have risked everything, travelling illegally by sea from Morocco to the southern tip of Spain in ramshackle boats, with many of their number dying in transit. The migrants spend months, sometimes years, waiting for the papers that will allow them to work and travel. I live in London and Barcelona, but Port is my summer home. Through friends I met the group of Senegalese men depicted here and began to photograph the town and their activities. The photographs are evasive in keeping with the life the migrants lead, just below the radar, often harassed by the police and looked upon with unease by the town’s residents. They live in a twilight plane of waiting, caught by political and economic circumstance, just as thousands more daily join their quest, risking everything to cross the Mediterranean – the new frontier between Africa and Europe. Diego Ferrari 2015/2016