Blinded

2015 initiated a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe. The increased number of people crossing via the Central Mediterranean Route came mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iraq, Eritrea and the Balkans. The increase in asylum seekers has been attributed to factors such as the escalation of various wars in the Middle East and The Islamic State’s territorial and military dominance in the region at the time as well as Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt ceasing to accept Syrian asylum seekers.

The responses of national governments varied greatly. Many EU governments reacted by closing their borders, and most countries refused to take in the arriving refugees. The crisis had significant political impacts in Europe. The public showed anxiety towards the sudden influx of immigrants, often expressing concerns over a perceived danger to European values.

Political polarization increased and many countries tightened their asylum laws. Right-wing populist parties capitalized on public anxiety and became significantly more popular in many European countries. To this day the fear of national invasion and the economic erosion by an ‘outsider’ continues to make moving across borders difficult for many people.

To create Blinded, Klenz used press photographs of refugees seeking asylum in Europe and projected those onto the wall of her studio. The wall was coated in phosphorescent paint, which allowed for the projected images to only be visible for a limited time before gradually fading into darkness. Each single image flares up briefly before slowly disappearing over time from view. In quick succession other still images were being projected on top, fusing with the original photograph. The images of vulnerable refugees appear in flashes and blinks of light before disappearing into faint and haunting ghost images.

Blinded uses the inherently unstable and fugitive nature of the photographic image to describe some of the circumstances related to the migrants’ and refugees’ conditions - of being in transition, of being homeless and having lost sight of the familiar. The faint and hauntingly temporary trace of their images call to mind the ephemeral nature of their existence: The lives of many refugees sadly often resemble their presentation here; a light that burnt brightly and as suddenly extinguished in its prime, with just a ghostly image in a photograph to remind us of their ever having existed. The ghostly after-images of Blinded suggest refugees’ fragile and often short lives and for many of them their lives lasted not much longer than the fleeting exposure of the camera shutter or the bight flash of light that brings them into a short existence in the video piece.

Blinded is an immersive video-installation commissioned by Strange Cargo for the Folkestone Light Festival 2018.