New Beginning: Mo (2021)
New Beginning is about young people who have come to the Netherlands alone or with other minors and develop a new identity here. The images are part of the Shadow Game project in which adolescents try to circumvent natural borders, border guards and police stations to reach Europe. A game of life and death: by train, boat or on foot.
Photographer and documentary maker Çiğdem Yüksel, together with young people with a refugee history, was looking for a way to tell their stories. These stories transcend ‘being a refugee’ because the people they portray are much more than that. They are confident and resilient but also vulnerable and traumatised.
Yüksel presernts Mo’s multimedia story. The media installation alternates between personal photos, selfies, personal video recordings and portrait photos. Combined, Mo’s images and stories offer extraordinary insights into an adolescent boy’s experience of fleeing through Europe to reach the Netherlands.