This exhibition is a reaction to the current refugee crisis across the Middle East, focusing on Syria and Iraq. As well as this it uses past stories from Bosnia & Herzegovina to reflect and remind us that the need to aid these people is not new. Eritrea is a country in Africa facing war, with little to no media coverage the refugees are often overlooked and unheard of, although in great quantity fleeing the country.
The passports have missing identification pages, but contain true stories of refugee's experiences across the regions. With no formal identification how can you prove who you really are? You are a body with only your experiences. Do you lose your identity? All identity is experience; everbody has a story, everyone is someone.
This is the entrance to the exhibition, here can pick up a passport and make your way around. The broken fencing represents crossing the border into an new place putting the viewer in the shoes of an asylum seeker.
Crossing the border is the first section of the exhibition. This shows the journey asylum seekers make from the country they’re fleeing, through other countries to get to their destination. The large scale images are to make you feelin the journey yourself.
Photo Credit: Lianne Milton
Photo Credit: Lianne Milton
The holding camp is the second section of the exhibition. Here people can get a glimpse of the experience asylum seekers face when being held in the camps, such as the ‘Jungle’ in Calais. The room is to reinact the social interactions people have in the camps; sharing their stories in the passports, and being able to read others from the table in the middle which displays the whole range of passports.
The enlarged images of the walls are to give you a sense of the scale and the claustrophibic nature inside the camps. Large numbers of people are squeezed into these confined spaces forcing them to live in such close quarters.
Photo Credit: John Stanmeyer & Marcus Bleasdale
The screening room is a mandatory part of the Home Office procedure. Asylum seekers must have their photo taken and fingerprints recorded before the interview stage. Fingerprints recorded on the desk while the board is allows visitors to pin up their prints and exhibit them. Poster on the wall describes the items of documentation that you mst have. Although no-one has them. These include ID (which is ruined on all passports.
The interview room is where visitors use their passports to prove the experiences. Each passport has a different booth, to represent that each nationality has a different experience in the interview. Sound over of the questions and an interactive interface to answer the questions. If you are not convincing to the interface you won’t get the stamp of approval and gain refugee status.
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