Going the Distance
Video Work in Migratory Aesthetics by Mieke Bal
12 - 21 December 2008, The Fibonacci Centre, Fremantle, Australia
5 December 2008 - 12 February 2009, Tampere Art Museum, Tampere Finland
This three-part exhibition proposes a close look at migratory culture. Through a multitude of stories, the works facilitate an intimate connection between long-term residents of the wealthier countries and new arrivals looking for a better, safer, livable future. The works address the enriching quality of the resulting migratory culture.
Nothing is Missing invites visitors into a living room where video portraits of mothers tell us about the child who left. The emptiness in the home of origin is thus brought into the homey atmosphere where we all stock up for life. GLUB (Hearts), an installation, considers the aesthetic consequences of migratory culture for the urban centers, literally from the bottom up. The symbolic meaning of sunflower seeds as embodiment of diaspora leads to drastic transformations in Berlin’s public space. Migratory Stories looks at the changes in the countries of arrival, the difficulties their inhabitants unwittingly erect where the old value of hospitality vies with jealously guarded privileges. Economic, administrative, cultural, and linguistic forms of boundary-policing are shown through the eyes of those who are kept at the other side. Migratory stories contains the following films: Becoming Vera, Colony, Mille et un Jours, Un trabajo limpio, Road Movie, Rockefeller Boulevard and Access Denied. | 
