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Dead End in the Land of Ulysses, 2020
HD-video (color, sound), 54:10 min.
The 11 videos address this „indefinite and endless moment“ of the migrant trapped in Greece. They focus on the faces of different migrants holding a registration paper. The face expresses the identity of a unique person, at the same time the administrative paper emphasizes the de-indivualization the migrants are facing. They look at us, they don‘t talk and a subtitled text tells their story.
In addition to the videos, there are about 70 photographs of some of the people involved as well as of the surrounding areas. These photographs can accompany the videos or be presented independently.
Teaser
During their journey, the migrants were confronted with many events, just like Ulysses, and many of them are now in Greece.
But no place in Greece is their home, they are not called Ulysses, but Sirwan, Hanan, Azad or Mervin. They no longer have a home, they no longer look for their children, wives or houses. They flee from their place of origin to the countries of Northern or Western Europe. They are not modern Ulysses, but real children, women and men, Sirvan, Hanan, Azad or Mervin, trapped in the European administration of migrants: they are in a dead end in Greece!
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Neither a step forward nor a step back, they are there, almost everywhere, in a time that does not move, almost out of time, out of human history! No roof, no money or almost no money, no care, they are there, in abandoned buildings, in parks, behind a wall. They are there sometimes visible and often invisible. With still a name, but almost no identity and almost no rights.
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Short extract
My project aims to address this "indefinite and endless moment" of a migrant, who is blocked in Greece.
My aim is to focus on the faces of the various migrants holding a vague registration paper in their hands. The face expresses both the personality and the identity of a unique person and bears the signs of de-individualisation that an administrative paper emphasises. Faces, people that we do not see, that we do not look at. Beyond statistics, beyond speeches, my project invites you to look at the faces of people trapped in the land of Ulysses.
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The difficulty is not in finding or contacting migrants. The difficulty is to film them and to introduce them to an approach that is not journalistically meant and has little impact on their "dead end". By filming them where they are, by filming their faces with their administrative paper, I want to give them both a dignity as human beings and show the absurdity of the administrative management of the migrants' problem.
Dead End in the Land of Ulysses, 2020
Series of 70 photographs
Inkjet-prints on paper, each: 29,7x42cm
Poster of the film
