The sign, which was made to resemble the official Spanish commemorative dedication plaque, reads:
The sign, which was made to resemble the official Spanish commemorative dedication plaque, reads:
“On this street died, on March 15, 2018, Mame Mbaye,
a victim of the institutional racism of the Spanish state.¨
Roughly 3 weeks later, in the middle of night, a group of far right Vox party supporters removed the plaque with police assistance.
Many young sub-Saharan men and women who manage to cross the deadly Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea alive make it to Europe only to find themselves in yet another impossible situation under harsh immigration laws. For 3 years the undocumented in Spain are expected to survive without residency papers, without work, without support of any kind. Add to this the persistence of cultural and institutional racism in Europe and things are particularly harder for African immigrants seeking refuge and many are forced to live in limbo in an ever vulnerable and precarious legal condition. As a result, a lot of young men become ad hoc streets vendors selling knock off goods to tourists to survive.
Undocumented immigrants are often scapegoated by insecure societies and assaulted by the police. They come to a so-called “free” Europe, only to become the scapegoats of a society seemingly unable to evolve with the times. Underwriting this power narrative through satire and détournement, two Manteros were hired to sell police toys to the Spanish public outside of Atocha, the largest railway station in Madrid. This project is also an homage to my unwitting mentor, artist Santiago Sierra.
Touray himself ended up in Europe the hard way, and not by choice. While escaping the former dictator of The Gambia, over the course of 6 years, he survived the deadly Sahara desert, from kidnappings and forced labor and dodging terrorist insurgencies to nearly dying in the Mediterranean Sea – only to make it to Europe to bounce from country to country and from prison to the streets in search of asylum. But Abdou endured, and today has dedicated his life to helping others.