Travelling Light
In 2015, nearly 300,000 refugees undertook the perilous journey across the
Mediterranean to Italy. Syrians call this journey 'The Journey of Death'. For a lot of
money, they put their lives and those of their families into the hands of smugglers,
who promise to take them across the sea. Crammed into small, unseaworthy boats -
often for many hours, if not days, without food and drinking water - they hold out in
the hope that they will get rescued before the boat gives in. Who are the people
that risk their lives in the Mediterranean? I wanted to know what people, who leave
everything behind to embark on such a gruelling journey, manage to take over into
a new life, and what these items mean to them.
Each still life photograph depicts all the items one refugee has left from the
journey. Social media enables most refugees to keep in touch with their friends and
family back home. Mobile phones are amongst their most treasured possessions
and many have gone to great lengths to protect them on the journey - so this
format, as a reference to Instagram, seemed appropriate. All objects are laid out on
a white background as somebody might prepare their items before going on a trip.
Those people, however, never had the chance or the time to give their items this
much thought when they embarked on their journey. The images are paired with
interviews. They contain memories, references to their homes and journeys and a
little glimpse of their hopes and dreams.
The images are combined with photos taken in Catania, where the boats arrive.
There I searched for shadows from this journey on abandoned smuggler boats and
witnessed the arrival of refugees into what was supposed to be freedom, but
seemed like a fortress of fences.
Book to the project: https://issuu.com/crazeebee/docs/travelling_light_english_issuu
(P.S. I'm a bit confused by the measurements - I have some of the images available at 100x100 cm + separate text panel (100 x 35 cm) and some at 50 x 50 cm + separate text panel (50 x 18 cm), aluminium dibond with black wooden frames. However, as they are photographs, they can be printed in any size, so I wasn't sure what to put in the dimensions box. I hope that doesn't matter. However, should you have any questions, please get in touch. Thanks. )
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