Border (2001)
‘I would really like to see a landscape again. Sun, water, mountains, blossom in the trees…’
Border depicts a group of figures huddled together in a small box hovering in the centre of black background. Eventually, the rest of the image comes into view, and the space containing the group turns out to be a box hidden in a truck’s cargo hold. We also see that it is an X-ray image, penetrating through the truck. Subtitles translate the muted Arabic dialogue, making clear that these are illegal refugees who have been hiding in this truck’s payload for days.
Though Border was made more than two decades ago, the situation it portrays remains indelibly in the present. The video shows with acute precision the suffering people endure to build a better life elsewhere. Regardless of whether the fleeing is by
boat, train or hidden in a truck, this work articulates the experience of being in a small group of people stuck in a dreadful and desperate escape.