Anne Immelé is a French photographer and exhibition curator. Her photos explore the many facets of our relationship to the land, including its geographical, human, and social aspects as well as its poetic qualities. In addition to having regular worldwide exhibitions of her photographic work, she is a teacher at the Haute école des arts du Rhin (HEAR). This project has seen her go from the Maltese islands to Sicily and Tunisia, in order to examine migration paths across the Mediterranean Sea. She compares and contrasts these with those of the Phoenicians, merchant invaders who established a network of documented routes across the Mediterranean Sea.

Immelé got her idea for this project in Malta when she visited various caverns on the island and discovered evidence of Phoenician civilizations. This, along with the active migration crisis happening around the world, evidences the fact that humans have been looking for safety from harm since the beginning of existence. The biblical story of Saint Paul’s shipwreck and subsequent landing on the island, which is also the basis of Malta’s Catholicism, serves as a particularly strong cultural anchor for the idea of refuge.

‘Melita’ features photographs taken in Maltese Phoenician caverns, Punic temple ruins, and Punic archaeological sites like Mozia Island (Sicily), Kerkouane, and Carthage (Tunisia). Immelé draws attention to their geological traits, emphasising their eternal quality in the process. Her depictions of sub-Saharan refugees echo this, highlighting the transience of human life’s events and trajectories.