As part of Parcours, Art Basel's public program, Alfredo Jaar presented "The Gift", an intervention intended to raise funds for the NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS).
"The Gift" consisted in handing out 12,000 little blur boxes to visitors at Münsterplatz between June 13th and 19th, 2016. The boxes were given out as gifts.
The instructions required each recipient to open the box and reassemble it from the opposite side. As a result, the cube displayed the words "Warning: This gift can change you" and a photograph of the Turkey beach where Alan Kurdi, the 8-year-old Syrian boy, was found dead. Kurdi, who left for Greece in 2014, drowned alongside his mother and brother after the boat that carried them from Syria capsized.
Alfredo Jaar invites the public to remember the moral imperative of confronting the immigrant crisis. Along with the MOAS organization, whose slogan is "No One Deserves to Die at Sea," Jaar asks us to join the cause and make donations via https://www.moas.eu/