The map, made by the Škart group, is part of a series of maps in the Museum’s collection, which was created as a result of cooperation between the Škart group and the collective Grupa 484 from Belgrade in the asylum centres across Serbia.

The basic guiding principle the project initiators established from the very outset was their desire not to see and portray migrants as victims, but rather treat them as brave people who radically changed their lives by embarking on their journey. Their flight meant flight from war and poverty. They asked a range of questions – how, when and where they travelled, why they decided to embark on such a journey, what kind of troubles and challenges they had encountered, how they crossed borders, how much they paid the traffickers; and about their experiences with the police and the locals in the countries through which they travelled. Their responses were recorded in the form of maps – they drew the trajectories of their journeys, which in some cases lasted up to seven years. On some maps, some parts of the journeys have been omitted, some details may be missing or unclear. These journeys are represented only by facts – factographically – and thus they foreground the absence of a humane asylum politics in Europe.

Text: Andreja Hribernik