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François 1 & Wilmington Charter : A New Look
2 mars 2019

Tomas Van Houtryve and the Refugee crisis (2010s')

 

THE EUROPEAN MIGRANT CRISIS

 

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On January 18th, Tomas Van Houtryve came to our school to present another work. This time he did not get back far away into Past and Space, but focused on a crisis that occurred a few years ago in Europe.

The Middle East is completly in ruins because of the wars that took place in this areas. Civilians were running away from Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. In 2015, more then 1 million people left their native countries to come to Europe. The trail goes through Turkey and Greece and then Eastern and Central Europe. The migrants, refugees, or illegal emigrants according to what you think, try to get to Western Europe : England, Germany, France and Scandinavian countries.

So the qusetion is : what does it mean to be a migrant at the beginning of the 20th century? What caught Tomas' attention is the pictures they published on Instagram. He took public accounts and try to figure out the meaning and the places where those pictures had been taken. 

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So Tomas, went back to those areas and tried to figure out the background of those pictures. Contrary to what we have in mind when we refer to refugees, those persons are smiling and describe their situation as if they were tourists. They do not talk about how harsh are their lives. They do not want their family to worry about them. And they do not want to be labeled : Regugee. They try to fit in well in the society. Of course, they left their homes because of push factors and it's better to be a refugee, and safe rather than being the target of bombs. But to go through that ordeal of migratory flows really means that you are brave.

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 On that specific project Tomas has used the New Techonologies of Information and Communication. His work was published in magazines such as 'New Yorker' and he realized a movie that was shown in museums. He took long still shots of different places and integrated the Instagram posts of the Migrants on their way to Western Europe.

Camille Chantoiseau

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