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Banksy funds refugee rescue boat
Famed Bristol street artist Banksy has reportedly financed a refugee rescue boat which has rescued almost 100 people in distress.
The Guardian has reported that the vessel launched in secrecy from the Spanish port of Burriana on August 18 to rescue refugees trying to reach Europe from north Africa.
Banksy has been vocal throughout the ongoing migrant crisis through his art. In 2019 he painted a mural of a migrant child in Venice and created immigration-themed graffiti in Paris in 2018.
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Recently, the artist also sold a trio of paintings, titled Mediterranean Sea View 2017 and depicting the European migrant crisis, which sold for £2.2m at auction.
The Guardian reported that the artist had been in contact with Pia Klemp, former captain of several NGO rescue boats, since September 2019.
“Hello Pia, I’ve read about your story in the papers,” wrote Banksy in an email to the seafarer. “You sound like a badass. I am an artist from the UK and I’ve made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously I can’t keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy.”
Banksy then financed the vessel, named Louise Michel after the French feminist anarchist, painted it in bright pink paint and reimagined the Girl with Balloon, who this time reaches for a pink safety buoy.
The Girl with a Balloon in London. Photo: Dominic Robinson
The Louise Michel aimed to reach refugees in distress before Libyan authorities could reach their vessels and return them to detention camps in the north African country.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 7,600 migrants have been intercepted on their journeys to safer countries in 2020 so far.
Authorities have then returned the individuals to war-torn Libya, a country in which migrants are often confined to makeshift camps, where human rights organisations have documented systematic torture and rape taking place.
Klemp believes Banksy chose to email her due to her political stance, which she describes as “an anti-fascist fight”.
So far in 2020, more than 500 refugees and migrants are known to have died in the Mediterranean Sea. The real number is estimated to be considerably higher.
The seafarer is also clear in her position that Banksy only financed the boat and had no further involvement, with the Guardian reporting her saying: “Banksy won’t pretend that he knows better than us how to run a ship, and we won’t pretend to be artists.”
The rescue mission was highly secretive, being planned in confidentiality between London, Berlin and Burriana.
The Guardian reported that the crew feared news reaching European authorities, who they believed would attempt to hijack their mission if they found out a project financed by Banksy was attempting to rescue migrants in the central Mediterranean.
Following its successful mission and saving 89 people, 14 of whom were women and children, the Louise Michel is now looking is now looking for a safe seaport for the passengers to disembark at, or to transfer them to a European coastguard vessel.
Main photo: MV Louise Michel
Read more: Banksy: ‘People of colour are being failed by a white system’
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