Repérages
repérage: term used in cinema for the location scouting stage in the production of a film. derives from the french repérer, to map out, to localize.
on the troubled empathy of the repéreur.
the space always speaks of moral implications.
if one’s space is essential to preserve one’s humanity then deprivation or degradation of personal space is a form of violence that is equal to a profoundly de-humanizing act.
a mattress is laid out in the corner of a room. anemic sheets are bunched together, others are thrown over improvised bedding carelessly, as if in a fit. plastic bags and rags pile up everywhere as relics in a treasure room. several more mattresses crowd the space, which is wide and yet small. several more, an expanse of them, to the point no space is left to feel and think. the space exhibits nameless masses, barely bearing a personal imprint. it only exhibits debris.
a recurring statement, "we didn’t come here to live like this.”
yet there’s the absurd notion that some can endure indefinitely. because their nature is less-than-human.
this work comprises a series of short looping videos that are reconstructions of migrant shelters and squats in italy. the settings in these almost crepuscular images are minimal and nothing in them changes save for light. each video is displayed separately in an empty room, completely neutral, in which it's possible to listen to ambient sounds from marine environments. each of the rooms connects to a central heptagonal lounge area in which visitors have to sit together for a time before being let in, one at a time.
italy is one of the gateways for migrants from the african continent to enter europe. many of these migrants are prevented by a range of circumstances and bureaucracy to proceed further and are stuck for indefinite time in a legal and human limbo. the living conditions they encounter after struggling at sea are a grave indictment to western civilization: only a few of these people are capable of moving on, becoming integrated and forming normal lives of their own, even after years. most disappear within an intricate maze of temporary solutions and are swallowed up whole by a system that doesn't want them. the source material of the images i created is photographs from media and organizations that documented in recent years the humanitarian crisis across the italian peninsula. most of the photographs show the living spaces of migrants as crowded, clearly depersonalized, and thus highly un-livable. the search for detail within these anonymous images wishes to bring back a degree of individuality and humanity into the troubling territory of the deteriorated living space. however, such reinterpretation is aware at all times of the distance existing between itself and the subject matter.
