Barca Nostra: Photography, Tourists, Travel and Refugees

The relic of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck, in which around 1000 migrants perished at sea in 2015, was resurrected as an art installation displayed at the 58th Venice Art Biennale titled Barca Nostra (Our Boat), by artist Christoph Büchel in 2019. The shipwreck was placed on a wharf near a café at the festival without an accompanying descriptive text. It was considered disrespectful, as it is a display of a site of tragic Black deaths for white middle-class spectatorial consumption. It served as a site for tourist selfies. It also serves as a memorial and sparks debates about migration and mobility. This paper and accompanying photographic work titled “Uncanny Venezia Vistas” focuses on the aesthetics of the uncanny to examine the controversies around “our boat”, its material history, the political crisis of migration, travel, and the historical/cultural space of Venice as capturing and disrupting the tourist gaze.