A year ago, a photograph of the body of a drowned Syrian toddler on a Turkish beach made front pages around the world. The New York-based Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar believes “it was the moment that made Europe see the migrant crisis”. Jaar was speaking at London’s Royal Institution in July in a talk organised by the South London Gallery and Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative.
The image of the dead boy, Alan Kurdi, inspired Jaar to create The Gift (2016), an interactive work made to raise funds for the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a Maltese charity dedicated to saving refugees’ lives at sea. In June during Art Basel, volunteers handed out 10,000 of Jaar’s “gift” boxes in the Swiss city. These unfolded to reveal a photograph of exact spot on the Turkish beach where the child’s body was found. Recipients of the box were encouraged to donate to MOAS.
A further 2,000 boxes were handed out in Malta and on the Adriatic Coast of Italy in subsequent weeks. More recently, Jaar tells us that his Berlin-based dealer, Thomas Schulte, gave a German collector a “substantial discount” on a work by Gordon Matta-Clark in exchange for a “major donation” to MOAS.
