Nemo’s is hanging us all out to dry with his newest mural on a multi-story factory wall in Messina, Italy that features his familiar hapless chaps clipped to a clothesline, sans clothes.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

His critique is of a shallow and shock-addicted press and media that exaggerates and simplifies the suffering, the unmitigated tragedy of people – sometimes for our comfort.

His focus is on immigrants escaping oppression who have drowned and the pseudo-compassion of contemporary news coverage and grand-standing politicians that feed xenophobia. He says we are overlooking the complete desperation of an escaping individual that causes them to take such risk, only to be swallowed in a watery death due to unseaworthy vessels.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

“I’m depicting an insane state imbued with selfishness, where the deaths of the sea are overshadowed by sterile discussions on how migrants can create much discomfort to our conditions,” he says. Here he points to us behaving as outsiders, perhaps guilty of xenophobia, willing to flatten a tragedy of its dimension in order to keep the “other” at arms length, distancing ourselves from any responsibility.

“With those four naked bodies I am representing, through a surreal metaphor, the total and absurd unconsciousness that newspapers and diplomacy use for talk about the theme of the deaths in the sea.

In the tragedy of death, the worst and selfish aspects of our society, with banal and thoughtless actions, take the bodies from the sea and hang them out like clothes to dry. It is as if the problem of these people is to be wet and not to be drowned.”

His method is a dark comedy, depicting these very similar looking guys in an unlikely situation. His attached message may not be clear to the average unlooker, but it may pique their curiosity to inquire what NemO’s newest piece is about.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

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