The poetics of migration
One of the possible ways to see the importance that a certain issue has in society is to observe its presence in the different artistic manifestations. Judging by the frequency with which migrations and related themes appear in contemporary artistic practices (literary genres, painting, photography, audiovisual products, etc.) we can consider that the migratory movements of human groups are a central issue in our time.
Artistic approaches to social concerns often offer us new perspectives; they highlight connections that go unnoticed to other, less ambiguous ways of looking at things, and ultimately they demonstrate the power of the arts and artists to clarify and explain the complexity of social life today.
Some of these artistic practices (poetry, novel, reportage, documentary series, photography...) have already been reported in previous collaborations. On this occasion, we would like to pause to gloss over two of these aesthetic approaches to migration, two original approaches (inserted in their respective traditions), which exemplify this " "elucidating " capacity of the arts.
In her series of collages devoted to migrations, Begoña Moreno (Zaragoza, 1976) starts from a linguistic concept (southern border, European dream, migratory discourse...), which acts as a creative trigger for her visual metaphors. The apparent simplicity of the compositions evokes in the spectator the "manual art works" done in the school.
The red spots, on a grey background and black and white photos, suggest the blood and heart of human beings, the drive for life that is at the heart of all stories of displaced people.
The technique of papier collé, with its collection of diverse materials from varied iconic matrices, brings to form the cultural hybrids connoted by migratory concepts. We can speak of "collage thinking", to use the wise expression of Bea Espejo.
The last collection of poems by Ana Luísa Amaral (What's in a Name, Sixth Floor, 2020) is also based on a linguistic reflection. The Portuguese writer (Lisbon, 1956) explores in the poems of this book the capacity of language to give an account of observed reality, the limitations of language as an instrument for understanding reality and expressing it verbally.
The book, translated by Paula Abramo, closes with the section "In other words (3 poems)", which includes pieces inspired by the refugee crisis in Europe: "Bifronte condición", "Mediterráneo" and "Alepo, Lesbos, Calais, o, en otras palabras".
The two-faced condition is that of the European citizen, kind and protective, on the one hand, but also inattentive, feigned and uneducated, capable of "looking without seeing", of establishing an insurmountable distance from that man who, before his very eyes, rummages through the rubbish in cold January.
The "Mediterranean" turns the Homeric sea into meaningless deserts of sand, through which the "nameless and faceless" wander, drops of blood, grains of sand, thick fluid, seas of dust.
"Aleppo, Lesbos, Calais" begins by evoking the historical and literary resonances of the first two cities (in "the time of poetry"), in contrast to the facts that link them to the present ("violence in centuries now"). It tells us about the traces of people who, "at a distance" (on the screens), have no face or name, but who, as we get closer to them, turning the "very wide lens" into a "microscope of life", become singular people who "abound in / names / whole, own tastes, varied sufferings, / muscles / to smile all different".
Also present in this poem is the theme that runs through the whole book, the tension of poetic language to give an account of reality whatever its nature:
"Of what I see from afar and on screens / I cannot speak using rounds, / rounded verses, a neat and uniform syntax / I want these lines in which I speak of other lines / made of other matter, real, hard, exploited, this one, / prey to smoke-coloured waistcoats and weapons" (...) "for all this there is no form of verse that is sufficient for me / because nothing is sufficient for me in terms of comfort or peace".
The southern border of Begoña Moreno's collages is here the "edge of the edge of this Europe" which, from its screens, lets only "a handful of / images pass by: / or, in other words, blindness... / even without words: rage".
Europe's past is the context in which Ana Luísa Amaral situates the migratory currents of our times, the insensitivity of European citizens to them, the challenge to the expressive capacity of poetic language.
Luis Guerra, Professor of Spanish Language at the European University of Madrid, is one of the main researchers of the INMIGRA3-CM project, financed by the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund