Michaela Meise – Mare Nostrum

Michaela Meise – Mare Nostrum

A group of eight people set forth from Palestine to cross the Mediterranean and land in Camargue. These are the first Christians that settled in Europe: Mary Magdalene, Maria Salome, Maria Jacobé, Sara-la-Kali, Martha, Cedonius, Lazarus, and Maximinus. In ‘Mare Nostrum’ (eng. Our Sea) – named after the Italian Coast Guard’s operation to save shipwrecked refugees – Michael Meise focuses on a migration movement that has been largely forgotten, and models the sojourners as patron saints of a church in Kassel. Instead of instrumentalizing Christian values as alibis for EU boundary-making, she reminds us of a foundational migration movement of a diverse community. In this exhibition Martha and Cedonius are on view.