In 2015, more than 300,000 people undertook the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Italy. Syrians call this journey 'the journey of death'. For a lot of money, they put their lives and the lives of their families into the hands of smugglers, who promise to take them across the sea. Crammed into small, unseaworthy boats - often for many hours, if not days, without food and drinking water - they hold out in the hope that they will get rescued before the boat gives in. So who are the people that risk their lives in the Mediterranean? I wanted to know, what people, who leave everything behind to embark on such a gruelling journey, manage to take over into a new life, and what these items mean to them.
Kiki Streitberger is based in London and in Germany. Her work explores the line between art and documentary photography, telling stories of cultural and social relevance through the eyes of the individual. She uses photography as a way to engage with the world around her and is particularly interested in the human element in a story … in the uniting factor.
