is a researcher and filmmaker whose work has a long-standing focus on the politics of migration within and at the borders of Europe. In 2015, he completed a Ph.D. in Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), Graduate Institute, Geneva. Together with Lorenzo Pezzani, in 2011 Heller co-founded Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative project based at Goldsmiths that has developed innovative methodologies to document the conditions that lead to migrants’ deaths at sea, and which has generated human rights reports, articles and videos that have been exhibited internationally.
Mediterranea, a “non-governmental action” organized around a civilian monitoring and rescue ship in the central Mediterranean, is one of the most innovative initiatives deployed against the deaths of migrants at sea, in support of their freedom to move, and in defiance of the drastic policies deployed by the Italian government.
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