Death in the Mediterranean

Since 2014 more than 23,701 people lost their lifes or went missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

Behind this statics stand human lifes. Humans with their own stories, with family and friends, with hopes and fears. They went on the dangerous journey to cross the Mediterranean to seek a better life in Europe - They did not arrive.

Seeing human lifes in statics is hard. This is why I want to take a different approach:

*Creating music out of statisics.*

This piece of music is created of data. Data of all recorded migrants who lost their lifes or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2021. In the piece, time is not linear. A bell marks the beginning of a new month and each day starts with a bass drum.

Each person on a boat is represented by a whispering voice. The more people on a boat, the more voices are heard and the longer their murmer and wail. The frequency resembles the share of women, kids and men on board. The higher the frequency, the more women and kids died or went missing.

A heavy beat and the silence afterwards signals their desetiny.

The graph below shows how many people went missing or died on each day in 2021.

Please note, that the recorded number of dead and missing people is most likely under

Resources:

Missing Migrants Project by International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Title Picture by Tim Marshall on Unsplash