34,361

THE LIST: (Link to PDF file)

Today, on World Refugee Day, the Guardian is distributing a list of the 34,361 migrants and refugees known to have died attempting to find a new home within the borders of the European Union.

It has been compiled by United for Intercultural Action, a European network of 550 anti-racist organisations in 48 countries. The List stretches back to 1993, when Kimpua Nsimba, a 24-year-old refugee from Zaire, was found hanged in a detention centre, five days after arriving in the UK.

The List only details refugees whose deaths have been reported: the toll is almost certainly far higher than 34,361. As international media coverage of the refugee crisis has taught us, many more deaths go undocumented. Migrants are lost at sea, or die in the backs of trucks; they are killed in perilous conditions in camps, or by far-right hate groups; or the extreme stress of their situation leads them to take their own lives.

Istanbul-based artist Banu Cennetoğlu, whose work explores the way knowledge is collated and distributed, and its subsequent effect on society, has worked with the List since 2002.

Among other places, she has put it on bus stops in Basel, Switzerland; billboards in Amsterdam; a wall in Los Angeles; advertising columns in Berlin; and a public screen on top of Istanbul’s Marmara Pera hotel.

This is the first time the List has appeared as a supplement in an English-language newspaper; it is also available from today as a downloadable PDF on the Guardian’s website.

The List is not an artwork in itself – the art lies in its dissemination. Cennetoğlu always ensures that the look of the list remains the same – a grid of data, showing the year, the name of the refugee, where he or she came from, the cause of the death and the source.

The most recent version of the List was finished on 5 May 2018. Other material has been produced by Guardian journalists, using the List as a source, to report on how the shape of the refugee crisis has changed over the years.

The List is a stark depiction of the scale of the refugee crisis and the human suffering it has caused over the past 25 years – misery that seems to have no end in sight.

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Alex Needham | The Guardian

• Banu Cennetoğlu’s exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery (28 June-26 August) 
• Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art (14 July-28 October).

Statistic.