Video
9:38, loop
2019

A lone snail wanders about a Monopoly board. MIGRANT decontextualizes the refugee crisis from its geopolitical substance, in an attempt to neutralise stigmatisation and cultural condescendence. An apparently innocent situation sirves to reveal the systemic violence of our contemporary societies and the inherent paradox of survival facing speculation. 

MIGRANT also questions the art world’s self-designated role as spokesperson for the voiceless, setting hashtags and elaborating discourses from the privileged contexts of galleries, programs and prizes (Can the subaltern speak?, Spivak, 1988). The crisis thus serves to boost carriers, to launder conscience and money, and ultimately to ratify and perpetuate the postcolonial status quo. The video repeats in loop, the migrant is on a never ending journey to and from nowhere. The title echoes the wording adopted by the media in the last years by stripping the migrant of the prefix “im-” or “em-”, leaving an anonymous traveller in eternal transit through a generic non-place.

Roberto Collio – photography
David Ros – post-production

2023  Migrations and the Shifting Borders, Loosenart / Millepiani, Roma
2022  Art Emergent, Academia de Belles Arts, Sabdell
2019  Franziska – Montajes para un futuro perfecto, Ciudad de México