Installation (Installation)

Roni Mocan’s work Welcome is a floorwork comprised of a grid-like arrangement of doormats that the artist borrowed from the local community, people in his building, and even from participating artists from the exhibition where it was first presented. In a time where xenophobia, divisive border rhetorics and news of an ongoing global refugee crisis have become commonplace, instead of sitting barely noticed at a home’s entrance, Mocan transforms these ubiquitous objects into carriers of a poignant and necessary greeting message. The installation underscores issues of migration, borders and racism, and gives light to the urgent need and responsibility we have towards addressing the issues that prevent humans from being welcome everywhere.

Painting (Painting)

Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s recent drawing of cutout figures on architectural tracing paper takes a statement by Leoluca Orlando, the Mayor of Palermo, as a point of departure for the work. Stating, “migration problems can and should find their solution within the affirmation of ‘freedom of movement’ as the new inalienable right of humans. No human has chosen or chooses the place where they were born.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

Through a seemingly haphazard layering of glass and porcelain, Dérive is part of a larger installation series that address borders and displacement. Sheets of glass and porcelain, two transformational materials of alchemy, are stacked loosely in the shape of melting glaciers that places humans, animals, and nature in the same ecosystem. Migrations of one population into another and the subsequent displacement is emphasized in sharp, jagged edges of the transparent glass—phantasmagoric dreams of a distant place—the migration of not simply physical bodies but also that of political opinions and thoughts.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Deep Sleep draws from historical avant-garde cinema to produce a poetic, sound-based meditation following brainwave-generating binaural beats. The dreamlike video is filmed among abandoned ruins in Malta, Athens, and Gaza, connecting the three locations in an attempt to convey the experience of being in Gaza from these monumental sites. Colorful flickering lights, sun, earth, stone, rock, sky, and water inundate the scenes, and the rhythmic sounds of waves, chimes, and footsteps remain.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

For Piedras Blancas , arguably his most ambitious and visually arresting video to date, Miguel Angel Ríos made 3,000 “piedras” out of a concrete/stone composite. The video is shot in arid, mountainous locations in Mexico (his adopted country) and Argentina (his home country). Over several months, Ríos scouted locations for natural-worn tributaries where he eventually allowed these balls to then thunder down the mountain.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The series of works gathered under the title Heure de Paris combines footage of Turkey from Turkish and French media reportage from the 1980s. Using archival material, including maps, television emissions, footage, Dogrusöz’s brings to light the state monopoly on radio and TV that ended in 1994 and the impact this had on documentation and reportage in this period. In Heure de Paris: The map and the territory , Dogrusöz collected and displays all the occurrences where maps of Turkey, frequently used in public French television, were reported.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory. Gupta created each map by superimposing 100 separate drawings of each country. The project investigates modern notions of the nation-state, national identity, and borders by looking at countries in which boundaries are contested and the history of the land far precedes such ideas.