Here and There is a new exhibition, currently being shown at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery. It is made up of three different works, that share a similar theme: the problems of acclimating to a new life as an immigrant.
One piece is called “La Corsa de Venditore” (The Run of the Seller.) The artist is Maya Schweizer. This black and white video, with displayed dialogue, tells the story of African immigrants who become street vendors in Italy. The video never shows the street vendors. Instead, it shows three Italian females, ranging in maturity, from a child to a women in her middle age. The eldest of the group is talking on her cell phone.
The dialogue frames that appear move the story along. Quotes tell the story of these street vendors, who constantly get chased by the police. Along with the visual aspect of this piece, there is also sound accompaniment. At first, it builds slowly, mostly with crowd noise in the distance. Then, at some point, police sirens start to sound and you know this is the sound that these vendors hate to hear because this means they have to stop peddling.
Another piece is “Dissolution” by Katia Kameli. This piece affected me the most in terms of creating an atmosphere I could feel. The work is basic enough: a ferry crossing the Mediterranean Sea, while rumbling noise is played. The idea of this piece is to show Algerians traveling to France. There is smoke from a chimney that distorts the visual; and this loud rumbling noise can make one feel a bit uncomfortable.
The third piece is Esra Ersen’s “The Trip to Bosphorus.” This piece documented a bus ride from a small district in Istanbul, where a lot of Turkish immigrants live, to the Bosporus Sea. Ersen hired the bus to take people to the sea, a place they had never seen before. There are two videos running simultaneously. One video shows the sights of the district, featuring wall murals, that are beautiful portraits of this sea. The second video is the bus ride to the sea. It shows people of different genders and ages excitedly on the bus. Each passing minute, they get more curious about what they will see.
When they get to the Bosporus Sea, it seems as though they are disappointed. What they thought was crystal blue waters, was a deep gray. What they thought was a sea with hardworking fishermen lowering nets, was actually freight ships carrying heavy cargo. It was easy to feel sympathy for these people who believed in such a beautiful thing, only to see that it was actually a polluted body of water. The Bosporus Sea was supposed to represent the potential and hope of a new life, where in reality its purpose was strictly industrial.
The three pieces did a great job in working together to show a similar theme. If you open yourself up to it, Here and There can give you perspective on what it’s really like to be an outsider.