Even as Western democracies continue swearing by policies that they unilaterally deem progressive and inclusive, it is increasingly visible that we live in a world designed to uphold incumbent privileges. From access to essential resources and cultural representation to the feasibility of one’s mobility across borders, the disparities that put disadvantaged individuals and countries at risk and in perpetual deficit are now more visible than ever before. Along with the United States’ increasingly restrictive visa acquisition and retention policies this year and a promised crackdown on immigration being part of every majoritarian political party's election manifesto, conversations around visa policies are occupying prime time discussions on international media channels and top headlines in newspapers. Against this context, Marta Foresti, founder of London-based LAGO Collective, responds to Prada Frames’s 2025 theme, In Transit, with data-driven stories highlighting how these policies deter the movement of individuals from poorer nations to and across other Global North nations, mainly the UK and European countries in the Schengen area.

Even as nationalistic tendencies continue to be on the rise globally, and xenophobia is, perhaps, visible in more lurid forms than ever before, populist media houses and the status quo are seldom able to delve into the reasons that lead to such exploits. It is the migrants moving to Global North nations who are often left vulnerable at the expense of such narratives - often presenting them as dangerous, uncultured and parasitic. While the migration and movement of people from marginalised communities and third world countries to the 'developed' world continues to be wrought up in bureaucratic hurdles, there is little effort made on public forums to delve into the formal procedures that weigh down several such limitations. Similarly, discussions on the precarious living conditions of migrants before, during and after their emigration end up inciting either reactionary, victimary or defeatist responses, leaving little room for objective discussions that can foster better integration of different groups and the welfare of those experiencing perilous conditions, prompting such movement.

To imagine a unilateral policy-level solution against this context is, then, impractical to achieve and implement. On the contrary, it is essential to counter this information warfare that has led to a reductive view of individuals hailing from war-torn countries, third world states and from races, religions and classes demoted to the lower rungs of respectability in the social strata. A potential response is reclaiming spaces wherein the issues of this disadvantaged populace can be diplomatically and holistically led and deliberated upon. Beyond (often surface-level) forums organised by firms in the development sector, there’s some soft power that rests with the average creatives in our community. To yield the power of design to disseminate information otherwise deemed too complicated tendrils its potency as a reformative tool, or at least a conversation starter.

Foresti—who is a policy executive-turned-social entrepreneur—founded LAGO Collective as a research and creative organisation whose work concerns itself with ‘migration, culture and the arts’. The collective seeks to change the narrative on the global movement of people by engaging creative productions, and effectuates this reformative capacity of design by working with data artists, information designers, musicians, researchers and policy makers, producing outputs that employ data visualisation to disseminate important migrant data and stories, as well as research and analysis in this important domain.

Since 2023, LAGO Collective has been monitoring and analysing the data on short-term business and visitors’ visas to Schengen countries and the UK. The collective employs two methodological pillars for this purpose—a quantitative data analysis of rejection rates and associated costs and the research and analysis of this data via LAGO’s visualisations, storytelling and creative productions. The outputs include dynamic visualisations and sonifications reflecting the visa rejection rates via shapes and sounds. Furthermore, LAGO also delves into films, producing short documentaries on the themes of movement, migration and visa inequalities. In order to involve the larger public in LAGO’s outputs, the collective is also responsible for organising and participating in informative events and performances.

LAGO Collective's work on reading, understanding and visualising the rejection rates of visitor and tourist visas to European countries in the Schengen area every year—clubbed under the inquiry 'Visualising Visa Inequality', helmed under the All Other Passports project—reveals concerning rejection rates for individuals hailing from poorer countries, with disproportionately high visa rejections found for African applicants. Pivoting the visualisation on information sourced from the official dataset released by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, UK Home Office and the World Bank, information designer Federica Fragapane, in collaboration with Foresti and research scientist Otho Mantegazza, has lucidly visualised the blatant disparity that constrains the entry into and movement within European nations for individuals hailing from low-income countries.

Another project by the collective, The Costs of Visa Rejection, also visualised by Fragapane with Foresti and Mantegazza, uncovers the costs of unequal visa regimes. Basing calculations on visa rejection rates published by the European Commission and the non-refundable application fee of 80 euros for short-term business and tourist visas to European countries in the Schengen area, LAGO estimated a total loss of €130 million in 2023, of which more than €100 million are borne by various low and middle income countries in Africa and Asia. “In June 2024, Schengen short-term visas increased from €80 to €90 for adults, and in October 2023, the UK fees went from £100 to £115”, Foresti, Mantegazza and Kenji Maghoma (Senior Producer and Communications Manager, LAGO) detail in their story Africans pay the price of visa denials to Europe for Africa at LSE.

On the split side, Hearts and Minds by LAGO Collective is a project that reflects collective attitudes to immigration. Sub-titled ‘How Europeans think and feel about immigration’, the project covers countries such as Germany, Spain, the UK, Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Greece and Portugal.

The collective further hopes to utilise data, digital design and storytelling to track the evolution of visa regimes in different countries as well as the associated costs, rules, time requirements and the lived experiences of those affected by them, under their upcoming inquiry 'Visas of the World', also part of their larger project All Other Passports.

Stories of Visa Inequality, a short film produced by the team at LAGO in collaboration with Accra-based Oroko Radio and PRJCT Kumasi in 2024 and shot in Kumasi, Ghana, sheds light on the systemic barriers that prevent individuals from sharing their voices on a world stage via real interviews of individuals who have suffered due to visa rejections. “This short film explores how restrictive visa regimes stifle cultural exchange, limit economic opportunities and reinforce inequalities within the creative industry. It challenges policymakers and industry leaders to rethink outdated visa policies, explore tangible solutions and elevate this critical conversation far beyond the screen,” reveals an excerpt from the video description. The film accompanies Foresti’s symposium talk at Prada Frames in Milan, Italy.

Prada Frames is heralded by research-based design studio FormaFantasma and fashion designer and Prada’s lead designer, Miuccia Prada. Started in 2022, it seeks to catalyse deliberation upon meaningful subjects during the Milan Design Week every year. The theme for the symposium this year seeks to tackle the subjects of movement, mobility and related infrastructures, discussing these issues at both local and global levels, while addressing the implications of infrastructural advancements, extensive logistical systems and informal discrepancies and biases to shine a light on the "contrast between the fluidity of trade and the barriers to human freedom".

In response to this expansive theme, various architects, scholars, writers, designers, filmmakers and astrophysicists have narrativised diverse perspectives at the design fair over three days, from April 6 – 8, 2025. In addition to LAGO Collective’s Marta Foresti, speakers at the event include Kate Crawford, Elias and Yousef Anastas, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Jesse LeCavalier, Hito Steyerl, Samia Henni, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, Giacomo Abbruzzese, Ersilia Vaudo, Nick Hunt, Tung-Hui Hu, Paola Antonelli, Nicola Twilley, Bettina Stoetzer, Vinca Kruk, Daniel van der Velden of Metahaven and Marina Otero Verzier.

Over the years, LAGO Collective has successfully worked with creative thinkers and doers, researchers and policy makers to infer innovative and tangible outcomes. The essence of this collaboration is captured in the visual identity of LAGO, as well. The logo design comprises a continuous curved shape that rotates along three axes and around a central point to reveal varied outputs that correspond to each person who helped make LAGO. While personal passions and sector characteristics affiliated with LAGO members are abstracted around the X-axis, the distance between their place of origin and current location is used to calculate the rotation around the Y-axis. Further, the team’s desired place of residence determines the rotation of the Z-axis. Hence, for each member of LAGO, the logo design is unique and specific.

Back to LAGO Collective’s sensorially expressive outputs, one can witness their experimental approach to recording and visualising unconventional forms of data in mediums that entice both sight and hearing. The Shapes and Sounds of Visa Inequality is a project that transforms Schengen visa rejection rates from 2023 into a unique audio-visual narrative. This method of data sonification, produced by Fragapane and data artist Tiziana Alocci, transforms mundane data into a dynamic experience that engages the audience and urges them to feel the disparity through AV media. Here, each visa rejection rate is paired with a harp note while shifts in income levels are represented via bass changes, resulting in a "soundscape that mirrors the tension between opportunity and rejection".

This sonified output is among the several cross-mediatic presentations that the LAGO Collective made at the London Migration Film Festival in November 2024, under the moniker All Other Passports. Undertaken in collaboration with Moleskine Foundation and Phaidon Press, the event also featured the showcase of LAGO’s data and analysis of rejection rates for short-term business and visitor visas to Europe, Lwando Xaso’s "reminder of the fences erected within South Africa during the Apartheid era, limiting the rights and movement of Black citizens", photographer Sama Kai’s images of Sierra Leone which sought to challenge inaccurate narratives about the African continent, writer and curator Lemn Sissay’s poems calling out the racism that underpins unequal visa regimes and fashion designer Alekandra Lovrić’s dialogue on textiles, along with a presentation of the short film Stories of Visa Inequality.

Beyond their work in tracing and visualising visa inequality, LAGO Collective’s research extends to understanding the proliferation of the creative economy in global cities with the project Under the tangerine sun, for instance. The project maps out the contribution of each city’s creative economy towards the national GDP, employment rates, enterprises supported, as well as the extent to which each creative sector is prominent in each country.  Another project by the collective, namely Key Workers – Migrants’ contribution to the COVID-19 response, showcases the contributions of migrants on reforms, new initiatives and campaigns during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the intention of better recognition and support for their work.

Apart from LAGO Collective’s creative and atypical outputs detailing rather complex data findings, it is notably refreshing to witness a creative response to a problem aptly summarised in curator and educator Lesley Lokko's opening speech for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. What is also worth noting is that the Collective and its data visualisations seem geared towards actionable outputs in ways that are almost entirely non-reductive and non-hedonistic, according 'subjects'—real lives and livelihoods—the dignity that they deserve. This is especially pertinent in an industry that is still bogged down by issues of unequal access and representation, despite it being a constant topic in panels, talks and other creative forums.