7/28/2019 Welcome on Board by Patrice Terrax Exhibition Text
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They come from the ends of the earth, navigating the worlds
oceans according to the dictates of the
shipowners. Seafarers. They ensure the smooth operation of the
merchant marine, the engine of theglobal economy, carrying around
90% of the worlds trade.
Most of them are exploited, because international shipping is
social chaos, its ways made even
murkier by the owners use of ags of convenience. The cloak they
provide allows owners to transport
toxic cargoes, paying little attention to health and safety, the
crew underpaid, even unpaid, and liable
to be abandoned at the slightest problem.
It was 10 yars ago that i rst met thesedistressed and abandoned
seafarers. I was following Yves
Reynaud, an Inspector for the ITF in Marseille, whose remit
covers the entire Mediterranean. The
ITF (International Transport Workers Federation) is a coalition
of unions based in London that works
for the rights of sailors, ghting the obscure practices that
come with ags of convenience.
The most striking example was the Florenz, a Panamanian
freighter abandoned in Ste in January
2001. Wage arrears were so high, the owner preferred to abandon
both ship and crew. There were
22 sailors on board, Greek, Croatian, Georgian, Cameroonian,
Ghanaian. Caught between anxiety,
despair and sheer boredom, going home impossible without money.
The ITF had organised their
relief through a support committee and, fortunately, the boat
still had some value. But the wait would
be long: a year and three months until an auction could recover
the wage arrears. The ship changed
its name, acquired a new Flag of Convenience, Cambodian this
time, and set off on the waves, still
in a terrible state, but with a new Filipino crew...
My rst photographs documenting this situation gave birth to the
book Welcome on Board ,
published by Images en Manoeuvres in November 2005. But the
story did not stop there. A trip to
Dakar brrought me to the Marine One, where an abandoned crew had
survived for two years in
appalling conditions. As a sailor, your chances depend on where
a ship is abandoned. In Dakar, withno support committee, the
sailors lived on sh from local shermen, drank stagnant bilge water
and
became ill.
WELCOMEONBOARD
GALLERY
PATRICE TERRAZ|
23.03.13-25.05.13
7/28/2019 Welcome on Board by Patrice Terrax Exhibition Text
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January 2010. A commission for Le Monde plunges me back into
this story. I leave for Istanbul, where
hundreds of ships with uncertain futures line the sides of the
Bosphorus. Victims of the nancial crisis,
some are completely empty, slowly sinking, threatening to
capsize or to come crashing against the
shore. The slowdown in the global economy has had an immediate
impact on trade in the Black Sea
and Istanbul is at its entrance.
At the end of the economic chain, you nd sailors, exhausted and
homeless, abandoned to fate,drifting between boredom and isolation
almost any ship will do. The Nemesis, for example. Flying
the ag of Sierra Leone, this 1965 freighter pitches about in the
Sea of Marmara, pending some
improbable return to service. Its two watchmen havent been paid
for a year. Its Ukrainian owner,
nevertheless arranges the delivery of food and water once a
week. Around 500 ships have been
abandoned in Istanbul. The Solvita, in the cargo business since
1977, ying the ag of Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines, stuck for several months with nine Ukrainian
sailors. Pending their repatriation,
the local branch of the International Transport Workers
Federation brings supplies to what has
become a oating prison.
September 2010, the ITF sends me to Algeciras to photograph the
Eastern Planet, a Sierra Leone-
agged freighter. Without news of the owner for several months,
the morale of the Ukrainian crew
sinks, eaten away by inactivity, trapped by the inactivity of
others. Food is provided by humanitarian
organizations. Fuel is running out. Its a typical case for the
ITF.
But the subject is innite. January 2011, I return to Ste, ten
years after the rst images of the
Florenz. The Rio Tagus, built in 1979, also ying the ag of St
Vincent and the Grenadines, is held in
port, no longer seaworthy. Wages have not been paid for a long
time. The ship has no market value,
the cost of repair is too high, the owner is in debt. For ITF
Inspector Yves Reynaud, repatriating the
crew is the only solution, but it is the nightmare of every
sailor, having left his family for months, to
go home without money. The ship will be just one more on a list
of rustbuckets, sinking in different
ports.
In ten years the situation hasnt changed. Sailors exist at the
worlds margins. Platos thinking still
holds true. A sailor is neither among the living nor the dead;
for man, made for the soil, launches
himself upon the waters like an amphibian and belongs to the
earth and not to the sea and when he
sets out upon it, he puts himself at fortunes mercy.
See more of Patrice Terraz work at: www.terraz-photo.com
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