Maya Ramsay @ Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth

Maya Ramsay makes work inspired by the subject of conflict. Using unique techniques, she lifts surfaces from sites of conflict, bringing the materiality of the subject closer to the viewer.
For ‘Countless’, Ramsay has made twenty-nine rubbings from the graves of migrants who died at sea whilst trying to reach Europe. The first recorded shipwreck of a migrant boat in Europe occurred twenty-nine years ago, in 1988.  The rubbings were taken from four cemeteries in Sicily. The majority of drowned migrants’ bodies remain unidentified and their graves are marked with a number instead of a name.