June 21, 7 pm

Video Screening

With comments by the artists/producers

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Phil Collins, how to make a refugee
Carola Dertnig, a room with a view in the financial district
Kanak TV, 40 Jahre Einwanderung / Weißes Ghetto
Jun Yang, Camouflage. LOOK like them TALK like them

Phil Collins
how to make a refugee

1999 | Single–channel colour video projection with sound |12 min

In “how to make a refugee” Phil Collins reveals the imbalance of power embedded in relations of looking. In this piece, Collins films a Kosovan Albanian family who are victims of the war in former Yugoslavia. They are being photographed here by the media for a lifestyle magazine. A young boy is asked to remove his shirt to expose scars from bullet wounds; his expression is one of detached discomfort and embarrassment. Those doing ‘the looking’ have the power while those being ‘looked at’ become the object of the former’s gaze. As an uneasy viewer, we are implicated in this objectification and voyeurism. The video work exposes media manipulation of displaced people during the NATO campaign in Kosovo. The journalists’ own agenda takes precedence over the refugees’ plight and what begins as a complicated human situation is transformed into a flat and frozen image. It makes for uncomfortable but compelling viewing, powerfully telling a story without any sensitivity to the ongoing reality of the subjects’ lives. … >>