Unseen – Sonic walkscape at the border
Unseen offers an immersive sound walk in the cross-border region of the Briançonnais. It invites the public-walker to immerse themselves in the story of Blessing Matthew, who died on this border in May 2018. Walking in her footsteps, the walk questions the local, regional and transnational context in which her death takes place, through a sensory and sensitive experience.
The Unseen project highlights some of the results of the DisFrontAlp research project : Alpine borders and migration issues, an investigation into exiled, missing and deceased people, through a sound walk created in collaboration with the Bandite collective. It offers an in situ immersion in the chain of events leading up to the death of the young Nigerian woman Blessing Matthew, in May 2018, whose death deeply marked the Briançonnais region, and beyond.
The walk allows walkers to confront the case of Blessing Matthew’s death, but also to situate it in the historical and geographical context of the “frontierization” of the Alps. In this way, Blessing Matthew’s death can be seen not as the result of an incident, but as the outcome of a context in which border violence is systemic.
The project uses art to stimulate the reappropriation of history and collective memory, that of the dead on the borders, invisibilized in official historiography. The initiative also aims to encourage the active participation of the public who, by retracing with their own bodies a route of the migratory route that many people cross on their way, become witnesses and guardians of the memory of the victims, and participate in the construction of a chain of witnesses.
Photos: Mauro Ujetto
Sound walk on February 7 and 8, 2026 in Montgenèvre, as part of the Commemor’Action des mort-es des frontières (Commemoration of the border deaths).
Photos © Mauro Ujetto
Briançonnais Culture and heritage Migration and borders Populations and territories
Coordination
Cristina Del Biaggio
Pacte (UGA)
