A Sudanese boy waiting to cross the border between Italy and France. © Luca Prestia

Beyond the border is a long-term project created by the photojournalist Luca Prestia and the professor of Sociolinguistics (University of Reading, UK) Federico Faloppa.

The project begun two years ago to reflect on the boundary – understood in geopolitical terms – and its meaning in relation to the consequences this has on the lives of the people who daily migrate from one State to another to improve their lives.

The authors’ attention therefore focuses on the physical places on the border: places of passage, anonymous, very often desolate. But also on the objects and the ‘traces’ that migratory flows leave in these same places. Objects and traces that become a vehicle of meaning, signs of suffering humanity but determined to rebuild a better existence than the one left behind.

In an age like the present one, in which in the European continent the migratory policies of States become more and more restrictive, turning attention to these real invisible ‘barriers’ (which are the borders) means trying to solicit a debate in civil society to raise awareness of fundamental human rights, such as migration.

Beyond the border also wants to show, thanks to this approach, that the borders between States can also be interpreted differently: not only divisional spaces, but also fluid places, whose porosity becomes an opportunity for human exchange and enrichment.

The project is divided into different phases, each of which corresponds to a border in European area. The first phase was carried out in Ventimiglia, on the border between Italy and France, a place of passage for many migrants.

The second phase, under construction, concerns the Greek island of Lesbos, a landing place for migratory flows coming from Turkey and from the Middle East countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria.

The next two phases will be Bihać (a border town between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia) and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.