An Echo of Moria

Nanna Hauge Kristensen

You can find more about our impressions from Lesvos here: https://www.nannahaugekristensen.com/selectedwork/test-vessel.                                                     

Thank you to Alaa Kassab, and all the contributors.

 “Ruins and remains of the burnt Moria Camp,” the GPS announces as we approach.

 

I recall the images of the Camp when it was still crammed with life. Makeshift tents on wooden pallets. Rivers of mud. Piles of trash. Chain-link fences with barbed wire. Clothes hanging out to dry. People’s faces.

 

Moria was Europe’s largest refugee camp. Founded in 2013, in this remote spot in Lesvos, it was initially meant to accommodate 3,000 residents. By 2020, it was overcrowded with 20,000 people. Many of them lacked reliable electricity and access to medical care.

 

At night, on September 8th 2020, while the world was still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, massive fires broke out, reducing the Camp to nearly ashes.  

 

Three years have passed since then. I’m here with Alaa Kassab, a documentary filmmaker. Alaa received a video from someone living in Moria in the spring of 2020, shortly before the fires. It shows people waiting in line to receive food.

What remains of Moria Camp are a few roofless white barracks and ghostly, fire-scarred trees. Some belongings lie scattered, like a couple of baby chairs and a Disney cap. A larger area is cordoned off with barbed wire. A chapel still stands with prayer carpets and a deteriorating image of Jesus. “This place needs a worn-out Good,” Alaa says after looking around.

 

As we walk among the ruins, I think of composer Pauline Oliveros and her Deep Listening meditations. She invites us to connect with our sonic environment and expand the boundaries of our perception. Especially, her score Imaginary Meditation comes to mind:

I wonder  –  

how can we listen deeply

from within 

our shared humanity?

Although Moria is now largely reclaimed by other species, it feels as though I can hear the echoes of all the footsteps once taken here. As if the voices, cries, and living activities still resonate; like a continuous vibration of human presence.