MIGRANT JOURNAL #5 – Micro Odysseys

Obsessed by the movements of humans, the ‘big picture’ and the mega-infrastructure that make their circulation possible, we forget that every great journey has its origin below the radar. The planetary and the microscopic are not necessarily in opposition—life is but a flow of minerals. Disease, seeds, plants, fauna have travelled the world, and back again, echoing humanity’s stories of exploration, exploitation and colonisation.

In this fifth and penultimate issue, we explore the microscopic in movement: from shooting stars to shifting sands, bacteria in Estonia and particles in Geneva, mosquitoes in fascist Italy and tuberculosis in Indian cities, micro-plastics floating in the Pacific Ocean, Roman weeds and their mysterious migration to Copenhagen.

Migrant Journal explores the circulation of people, goods, information, but also fauna and flora, around the world and the transformative impact they have on space. While migration is part of humanity’s genesis, it seems the phenomenon has become ubiquitous, happening faster, with complex ramifications.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bethany Rigby
→ WATCH THIS SPACE
Marit Mihklepp
→ HOLOBIONT TALES
Justinien Tribillon, Isabel Seiffert and Christoph Miler
→ SUBATOMIC DIPLOMACY
Élisée Reclus
→ THE WHITE MAN’S CLOVER AND THE MAORI’S FERN
D. Habets, S. Schäfer and C. S. Hu
→ THE MISSING MINERAL
Sim Chi Yin
→ SHIFTING SANDS
Leonardo Dellanoce, Ana María Gómez López and Femke Herregraven
→ THE GAME OF LIFE
Skye Morét
→ DAWN OF THE PLASTISPHERE
Andrea Bagnato and Anna Positano
→ ARRIVEDERCI AD ARBOREA
Ada Kwan
→ TUBERCULOSIS’S SILENT MOVES
Crystal Bennes
→ THORVALDSEN’S WEEDS