A key component in Eugenio Merino's diversified work is the relation of art with political, social and economic contemporary affairs and narratives. Far from a passive and disengaged art production, Merino uses his artistic activity to spur thinking, engagement and even action. His polemical works reveal a conception of art as a potential forthright witness, reporter and collective awareness agitator. One would be authorized to see in Merino's oeuvre a certain expression of faith in the ability of art to change fundamental things.At the occasion of the 2017 ARCO edition in Madrid, the artist presented the provocative installation, - Rescue Passports. The large-scale artwork is composed of a collection of wooden framed passports made of folded golden metallic protective thermal blankets that are used by NGOs. The series is wall-mounted as a regular grid for a total of sixty units. The passport covers are laser-engraved with the coat of arms of the countries that are most critically affected by massive and clandestine emigration flows like Mexico, Brazil, Syria, Libya, Kenya, Mongolia or Macedonia.If the work is a direct reference to the international refugee crisis, it also unwillingly resonates, in the Portuguese context, with the Golden visa program, inaugurated in 2012 and which grants residency (and EU access) to business and real estate investors. Yet, in contrast with the visa delivered by the Portuguese authorities to wealthy people with no other requirements than money investment, the golden passports in Merino's installation bring considerations linked with the root-causes of mass-migration such as warfare, abject poverty, environmental degradations and scarcity, persecutions and aspiration to a better life. Sarcastically, while the gold refers to greed and to business activities hidden behind those outrageous realities, the installation also points out at the refusal policy shared by several countries of the UE to deliver passports to emigrants.