- Venue
- Watermans
- Starts
- Thursday, April 14, 2016
- Ends
- Sunday, June 5, 2016
- Address
- 40 High Street, Brentford, TW8 0DS
- Location
- London
- Organiser
- Watermans
For this exhibition delGado travelled to Greece, Macedonia and Calais to record the journeys taken by refugees. delGado has not filmed these ‘invisible’ people but the places they have passed through and the traces of their existence they have left. In place of the images proliferated by the media delGado presents fragments of experiences and fleeting moments that tell the human story of people caught in the unfolding sweep of history.
Through the use of video, photography, light and sound, Altered Landscapes takes the viewer on a journey. The viewer navigates the different elements in the gallery space absorbing the experiences of the refugees and witnessing the reshaping of the continent as Europe’s horizons fill up with the authoritarian towers of a new militarised border control.
Inspired by the text The Metamorphosis by Czech writer Franz Kafka, and the anxiety ridden B-movie The Incredible shrinking man from 1956, the project centres on a personal diary from a narrator, a European subject, who is describing how his human identity is gradually eroded, being transformed into something else, as a response to the suffering he is viewing.
These reflections are provoked by the events and debates of the last few years around the refugee crisis and are contextualised in a landscape which is strongly embedded in our collective imagination: Greece with its Acropolis, the ancient citadel of Athens, and the birthplace of the democratic values and culture.
Events running alongside the exhibition:
16 April — 14 May: A series of workshops led by Juan delGado and The Paper Project
21 May: A symposium to discuss issues of displacement and migration, exploring how art can catalyse debate around human rights and create a dialogue around these issues. Speakers include Michaela Crimmin (Culture + Conflict), Áine O’Brien (Counterpoint Arts), Saphia Crowther (Amnesty International) and May Abdalla
watermans.org.uk/events/altered-landscapes-juan-delgado/
juandelgado.co
The exhibition is accessible and the main video installation is accompanied by an audio description available through headphones, and is screened with captions at regular intervals.
