Exhibition opening: SOLID × A Name, Not a Number
You are invited to the opening of The Social Life of Dead Bodies × A Name, Not a Number, a collaborative exhibition bringing together research on migration, forensic identification, death, and disappearance.
The research project the Social Life of Dead Bodies (SOLID) is hosting an exhibition with LABANOF - MUSA (the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology) at the University of Milan from 24 September – 18 October.
There will also be other events held during the exhibition period, such as a VR experience with PhD Efsevia Daskalaki, a letter writing workshop with Ethnographic poet Arendse Reeh, and talks by the SOLID team and Associate Professor Bidisha Banerjeewhich. Please read more and see the full program on the attached flyer.
About the exhibition opening
Through audiovisual installations, maps, poetry and the reconstruction of a shipwreck, the exhibition offers insight into processes of identification and the lasting lives shaped by loss. Visitors encounter the voices of forensic practitioners explaining the work of identifying those who have lost their lives at sea, alongside co-created poetic narratives developed with forensic experts, NGOs, and relatives still searching for their loved ones.
The exhibition unfolds through the work of two research initiatives: LABANOF - MUSA (the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology) at the University of Milan led by director professor Cristina Cattaneo, featuring selected works from LABANOF - MUSA own exhibition A Name, Not a Number; and the European Research Council-funded research project The Social Life of Dead Bodies at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Malaga and the Forensic Medicine Unit at the University of Crete.
We open at 18:00 with a glass of non-alcoholic bubbles, introducing the exhibition and the research field. Mirko Mattia, curator and conservator at CAL and MUSA – LABANOF, Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health – The University of Milan, will be joining us from Milan on occasion of the inauguration. Associate professor Anja Simonsen and PI of the SOLID project, Postdoctoral researchers Gül Üret and Félicien De Heusch will give a short introduction to their work within the ERC-funded project SOLID, while research assistant and multimodal anthropologist Arendse Reeh will share aspects of the project’s experimental research communication, she has developed in close collaboration with the research team and field participants.
Please note that the exhibition addresses sensitive themes such as death and loss.
Examining the body – a VR experience with PhD Efsevia Daskalaki
5–7 October 10:00-17:30.
Through VR, visitors will gain practical insight into what it means to work as a forensic pathologist. The VR experience is designed to illustrate and communicate the processes involved in conducting an autopsy, helping audiences better understand the work and methods of forensic medicine. While the VR itself does not perform or facilitate identification, it provides a valuable framework for understanding how forensic pathologists examine the body – an essential part of the identification process.
The VR experience is part of a visit from Efsevia Daskalaki, a graduate of the MSc Programme in Forensic Medicine, Anthropology and Imaging. As part of her PhD project with Associate Professor Elena Kranioti and her team at the University of Crete, and in collaboration with the HCI-Lab at the Institute of Computer Sciences, Foundation of Research and Technology – Hellas (Heraklion, Crete, Greece), Daskalaki has developed a VR experience and training tool focused on virtual autopsy of the head and thorax.
The Researchers Behind
6 October 13:30 - 15:00.
In the talk The Researchers Behind, scholars from within the ERC-funded project SOLID present insights into the research behind the exhibition. Associate professor Anja Simonsen, PI of the SOLID project, together with postdoctoral researchers Gül Üret and Félicien De Heusch, will present their work. Research assistant and multimodal anthropologist Arendse Reeh will also share perspectives on the project’s experimental research communication, she has developed in close collaboration with the research team and field participants.
A Letter To – with Ethnographic poet Arendse Reeh
6 October 15:30 - 17:30.
Visitors are invited to write a letter to a person who lost their life crossing the Mediterranean.
No one can find me here – talk by Associate professor Bidisha Banerjee
7 October 15:30 - 17:00.
“No one can find me here.” Affect and Residual Ontologies of the Mediterranean in Refugee Graphic Novels – talk by Dr Bidisha Banerjee, associate professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong.
About the talk
Often called the world’s deadliest migration route, the Mediterranean has become the site of a European, necropolitical strategy of migration deterrence. An estimated 25,500 migrants have perished in the depths of the Mediterranean since 2000. Several recent refugee graphic novels tell harrowing stories of the treacherous journeys migrants undertake in order to reach “Fortress Europe.” These include novels like Sergio Nazzaro and Luca Ferrara’s Mediterraneo, depicting a barren Mediterranean Sea where the waters have receded to lay bare all that the sea has hidden until now, and Armin Greder’s The Mediterranean which considers the “food chain” of aquatic migration where bodies sink to the bottom of the sea only to be consumed by the fish that may end up on our dinner tables. Still others document a child’s journey as they cross the Mediterranean – Ebo in Illegal (Colfer, Donkin and Rigano 2018), and Amina in Zenobia (Durr and Horseman 2018). Taking my cue from the field of Blue Humanities I suggest that the graphic and affective depiction of oceanic environments that seem to have been ascribed the role of policing the boundary between self and Other, citizen and migrant, is of crucial importance. In doing so I ask how such representations counter the human manipulation of the environment while also arousing empathy for the human migrants and the nonhuman environment.
Bio
Bidisha Banerjee is associate professor of English and Acting Head of Department in the Literature and Cultural Studies Department at the Education University of Hong Kong. She has published widely on South Asian diasporic literature and film, visual culture, and the refugee graphic novel. She leads the transdisciplinary project Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces. She recently published her monograph Traces of the Real: The Absent Presence of Photography in South Asian Literature (Liverpool University Press, 2025) as well as the edited collection Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces. She has also co-edited special issues on Thanatic Ethics with Interventions (2024) and Cultural Studies (2026) and on the refugee graphic novel with the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (2025).