Found objects add value to the depiction of the cross — never more than in Lampedusa. Laura Gascoigne highlights a boat artwork exhibition touring the UK, raising awareness of human suffering

Modernisation has barely reached Lampedusa, Italy’s ­southernmost outpost (it’s 60 miles closer to Tunisia than it is to Sicily). For the island’s population of 6,000 souls, fishing, farming and tourism are the main sources of income, and career opportunities remain traditional.

Twenty-five years ago, Francesco Tuccio took up the trade of St Joseph, moved by a desire to tell the story of his island in wood. But no sooner had he set up his carpentry workshop than a tragic chapter opened in the island’s story that was hard to tell.

Every island has its history of shipwrecks, and Lampedusa must have witnessed its share. Some will have brought unexpected riches to the islanders, but no riches washed up from the wrecks that now occurred with increasing frequency off its shores, only bodies – the human cargo traded by traffickers in African migrants.