BORDERLINE
Video by Fenia Kotsopoulou
Year of production: (December 2015)
Location: Spiantza Ilias (Greece)
Concept/performance/camera/edit: Fenia Kotsopoulou
"Where should we go after the last frontiers ?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky ? ".
by Mahmoud Darwish.
An infinite horizontal line of bodies attempting to cross the sea, leaving traces of a destroyed past merged with the sand. And in the meantime the sound of the sea...
While the West still struggles to find solutions for the “refugee crisis”, the main route towards peace and hope remains passage through the Mediterranean Sea.
In 2015 alone, of the almost one million refugees* and migrants attempting to cross these blue waters desperately fleeing war, violence, terrorism, and persecution : over three and a half thousand have lost their lives.
In 2016, Greek islands keep on battling odds to cope with refugee influx. On the other side of the cost, Turkey is already hosting over 2.5 million Syrians and also shouldering one of the greatest responsibility in sheer numbers in this humanitarian international crisis. Fishing boats crowded with men, women and children from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia try to cross from Egypt to Italy but they don't arrive to their destination.
What relies behind these numbers and facts is the human desire and longing for that place "after the last frontiers...after the last sky"; a place that still remains unknown...a place that we still dream of..
*data based on reports be the UN Refugee Agency: data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php
Selections:
- WAC : Week-end de l'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, curated by Mohamed Thara, France 2017
- Es Baluard | Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art [FIVA 6], Spain 2017
- 4th Biennale Mediterannenne D' Art Contemporain D' Oran: EXODE, Algeria 2017
- W:OW.04/GREECE - The refugee collection, Athens 2017
- FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL D’ART VIDÉO DE CASABLANCA, Morroco 2017
- International Cukurova Art Days - Ephesus Video Art, Adana (Turkey) 2017
- CologneOFF 2016 Italy @ Syracuse International Film Festival
- FIVA 06, Buenos Aires (Argentina) 2016
- Ephesus Video Art in Pera Museum, Instabul 2016
- x-24 festival, Gainsborough (UK) 2016
- IVAHM Festival 16 @ Neomudejar, Madrid (Spain) 2016
- Ephesus Street Video Art 2016, Izmir (Turkey) 2016
- “Refugee!” Collective Trauma Film Collections- part of the curatorial selection of CologneOFF 2016, at the 10th CeC – Carnival of e-Creativity: 26-28 February 2016 in Shillong, India
