REFUGEE STREET STUDIO PROJECT, BY ALEXIA WEBSTER

The ‘Refugee Street Studio’ project involves creating photographic portrait studios on the streets of refugee and IDP camps around the world. We invite anyone to come have their family and individual portraits taken. The portraits are then printed on site for free with a portable photo printer for people to take home for their family album.

In March 2014 I began the first ‘Refugee Street Studio’ in the Bulengo IDP camp just outside of the city of Goma in the D.R. Congo. The camp has over 50 000 residents who have fled fighting and violence in the north eastern regions of the country.

Refugee camps are spaces of uncertainty and transience. Many people arrive in the camps, deeply traumatized, having lost not only their homes but also most of their possessions, including family photographs, when they escaped the violence. Exiled from ones home, facing an uncertain future and a lost past, a family photo can be a powerful and precious object which can help support a sense of connectedness and belonging. Over 700 people took part in the Bulengo Studios and received their own printed photograph to take way with them. Many arrived dressed up for the occasion with their children or loved ones and patiently waited for their portraits.

Alexia's Webster's website

19:07 - By Unknown 0

2487, BY LUZ MARÍA SÁNCHEZ

2487 speaks the names of two thousand four hundred eighty-seven persons who were found dead throughout the border region of Mexico and the United States. Effectually giving voice to diaspora, Sanchez’s eight-channel sound piece evolves into an audible terrain where names are generated from various positions marking the varying directions of movement across the border. Each death, that was recorded and filed, has been audibly re-recorded and re-filed by the artist as individual sound files composed to play randomly, initiating organic patterns much like migration patterns themselves. Interspersed with varying periods of silence, some names are heard in isolation while others sound like links in a chain, and many overlap. As two thousand four hundred eighty-seven names are spoken the changing pace that speaks them disrupts any sense of repetition allowing the piece to extend beyond the serial monotony of name-calling. The random pattern employed in the voicing of these persons, these deaths, offers both moments of contemplation and anxiety with periods of doubt in between. That one can’t actually hear all the names, as some merge into others or are overlaid, underscores the immensity and gravity of what is being called for, not just called out—the intractability of 2487… and 2488, and 2489, and 2490 and… . More than just enunciating the sounds of each identity 2487 annunciates a calculated instability, a tension that quietly resonates throughout the piece.

A PDF with information about the individuals featured in 2487 is available for download here. For more information about Sánchez’s ongoing project on the Mexican diaspora, visit diaspora2487.org.

Luz María Sánchez's website

19:04 - By Unknown 0

OPERATION ONYMOUS (FBI INVESTIGATION OF THE SILK ROAD) AND CODE NAMES OF THE SURVEILLANCE STATE, BY TREVOR PAGLEN

As cyber threats increasingly push security efforts into virtual realms, Trevor Paglen’s work examines the many facets of government intelligence. Installed in a building that once served as home to the 902nd Military Intelligence Group — in a vault that housed classified documents — Operation Onymous (FBI Investigation of the Silk Road) invokes the motif of an FBI challenge coin, a cryptic medallion recognizing an agent’s affiliation with the organization; the coin featured here was given to those who aided the takedown of the notorious Silk Road darknet market in San Francisco. Code Names of the Surveillance State presents a scrolling list of more than 4,000 code names used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for surveillance programs.

Trevor Paglen's website

18:51 - By Unknown 0

EXODUS, BY MANDANA MOGHADDAM

Mandana Moghaddam knows firsthand the refugee’s sense of loss and displacement, hope and renewal. At age 21 she fled Iran after her father was executed in the revolution and she was barred from higher education as a penalty for political activities. After five years in transition in Turkey, she was granted asylum in Sweden, where she lives today. Her video installation captures that experience through the motion of suitcases adrift on the ocean, lost in passage — the baggage of our worldly goods that both protect us and expose us, cloak us and mark us as individuals or as members of a certain culture. The uncertainty of their delicate dance on the waves, and the comfort of reaching solid ground, evoke empathy and a desolate sense of loss, amplified by the sheer simplicity and beauty of the images.

Mandana Moghaddam's website

18:45 - By Unknown 0

1 KG OF SOIL, BY AMER AKEL

Installation show in Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna) 2015, in collaboration with Allartnow.

"What if the only remaining thing from Home is a few letters ... memories ...and a handful of soil....."

I didn't realise that obtaining handful Soil of Syria would be such a difficult mission. After numerous attempts that lasted a month and with some assistance from my friends I have managed to get 1kg of soil in order to achieve this project. It was a post journey from Damascus to Vienna... via Beirut...once I have received the postage and when I touched the soil I instantly had a strange feeling ...This is where the question of ' what is home?' has badly urged me (Amer Akel).

Amer Akel's website.

16:08 - By Unknown 0

ART PROJECT FOR FRANKFURT GROUP #1

This is the video with the information about our project on Freedom of thought.

If anyone from a country outside the EU wants to participate, please send us your contribution in your language.

Text in English:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

Text in Spanish:

Toda persona tiene derecho a la libertad de pensamiento, de conciencia y de religión. Este derecho implica la libertad de cambiar de religión o de convicciones, así como la libertad de manifestar su religión o sus convicciones individual o colectivamente, en público o en privado, a través del culto, la enseñanza, las prácticas y la observancia de los ritos.

Text in French:

Toute personne a droit à la liberté de pensée, de conscience et de religion. Ce droit implique la liberté de changer de religion ou de conviction, ainsi que la liberté de manifester sa religion ou sa conviction individuellement ou collectivement, en public ou en privé, par le culte, l’enseignement, les pratiques et l’accomplissement des rites.

13:42 - By Unknown 0

THEMES FOR THE MEETING IN FRANKFURT

The themes are:

1. Article 10: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
2. Article 17: Right to property
3. Article 18: Right to asylum
4. Article 20: Equality before the law
5. Article 5: Prohibition of slavery and forced labour
6. Article 9: Right to marry and right to found a family

13:37 - By Unknown 0