The Mapping Journey Project may seem simple at first glance, but once you delve into it, it opens up a complex world of geopolitical reality and struggles of individuals who just want to live a peaceful life and support their families. When I sat down in front of a screen and started listening to someone’s journey, my imaginations played a great part in experiencing the project. I would look at the pen moving across the map as my mind visualized their journey – whether it was through a desert or by boat or bus, I couldn’t help but imagine what it must have felt like – very captivating. The tone of their voices was very calm and casual as if they’re used to it.
My favorite moment was probably when a man tried to escape to Italy, but accidentally ended up in Turkey thinking that he was in Italy. The whole piece seemed refreshing and especially relevant now that I’ve read articles about the European refugee and migrant crisis and them being a generic mass of people – full of terrorists and slackers, looking to live on welfare – often very Islamophobic. That’s why the whole set up was so fitting – from afar, they’re all identical, impersonal projections, not until you sit down you can see how different all of the maps are and hear their experiences and stories and relate to them.

When I first entered the underground screening space, Ernie Gehr’s video exhibit, which is projected onto 5 screens in a dimly lit room, it immediately reminded me of a zoetrope, without the flickering effect. It was captivating right from the start, and became even more fascinating as I sat there and watched for a longer period of time. The piece unravels itself and you start noticing what constitutes the carnival. There is a lot of action involved in the projected series of playful vignettes – chase, horses, marching band, dancers, and ships. One of the common things was animals, or what resembled humans wearing giant animal heads, running across the screen. What I particularity enjoyed was the birds. What seemed a little odd at first was the inconsistent speed at which the animations move, but after having spent some time sitting there, focused on the screens, I got used to it and actually enjoyed it– seemed very organic, as if a child was sitting behind the screens manually changing the slides at random. I felt extremely nostalgic for my childhood as the animations reminded me of the books I had as a child with layered pages that I could move from side to side causing subtle movement in the pictures I was seeing. Only one of the projections was in color split into smaller screens, located in the right corner, it differed from all others, but had the same effect and didn’t feel much different. Since the piece was silent, I found fitting music to listen to while I was watching. I spent about 10 minutes for on one side of the room before moving to the other side to watch the rest. It would have been cool if the screens were all circular with swivel- like chairs in the middle, allowing you to enjoy all screens without having to move around. Not because I’m lazy, but to feel like you’re in the middle of zoetrope-like contraption, in the epicenter of the carnival. But nonetheless, I was hypnotized by the piece and sat there for about 30 minutes, listening to an entire album, unwilling to leave.

Projects 102 was like a huge integrated mashup of Neil Beloufa’s different works. It incorporated his sculpture furniture, his film People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers all surrounded by water, as well as the many different ways of viewing it, and a bunch of his other pieces throughout the installation. I didn’t want to leave until I understood exactly what was going on. And there was a lot going on. He created many different ways for you to consume his film. Each different form of viewing the film visually was tied together with one soundtrack.
What I observed is that there are hidden cameras inside little domes with seemingly random magazine clippings, little sculptures, drawings and objects stuck all over the clear dome. These seem random but aren’t because the little cameras capture the necessary images inside the dome to sync up with the narration of the movie of the imaginary place that was being described by the actors in the film. So if they were referring to “wine” the little camera would turn to the picture cutout of wine glasses and transmit that image to the television screen and it would get overlapped and spun around with other relevant dome-pieces as the narrators went on with their descriptions.
At the center of it all is a huge moving sculpture that refracts the projection of the film on to different Plexiglas panels. And in a somewhat separate room the film is playing in it’s original form on a screen. It is because of this screen that I was able to understand everything that was going on with the entire project.

Bouchra Khallili’s “The Mapping Journey Project” is a project that resists easy description.

I believe this is primarily by virtue of the many seeming contradictions at play in the piece. First, each video is formally and structurally identical, but the actual content is entirely distinct. Second, the visuals are apparently simple and straightforward, but their explanations and trajectories are particularly convoluted. Third, the piece works to express a vital point about the paths walked by refugees, but does so by powerfully individualizing each refugee’s story.

This is the key to the piece, I think. In our culture, the dominant dialogue regarding refugees is, on both sides of the political spectrum, reductive. The far right reduces refugees to dangerous, fear-inspiring stereotypes, and the far left reduces refugees to the suffering other that will benefit “from” us. For both sides, refugees represent political capital to be used in self-interest. Neither side seems particularly interested in the humanity of those refugees, in the stories of those refugees. And of course, why should they be? The acknowledgement of their narratives can only undermine the cohesion of these constructed narratives.

Khallili resists that dialogue so simply, by literally illustrating how different each refugee’s tale is. Khalili then empowers those same refugees by allowing them to tell their own stories, to draw their own paths. Here, those stories become distinct from the geopolitical consequences and circumstances typically associated with refugees. Issues of sovereignty and statehood are less important to these narratives than the simple facts of their journeys. None of the journeys drawn in permanent marker align with any easily conceivable trajectories or borders. Every map is different, and every journey is wildly unique. The only thing about each person’s story that’s the same is that they each have one.

I felt an odd instinct while looking at Khalili’s piece. I wanted to see all the maps, all the journeys, projected onto one large map of the world. I wanted to see how they overlapped and how they diverged from one another. But Khalili resists that urge too. These maps aren’t maps of the world, they’re maps of stories. So they don’t belong to us, they belong to the storytellers.

Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project, is a video exhibition that features eight stories of illegal immigration. Each person tells their story and traces their journey with a marker on a map. Each story is featured on its own screen and the viewers themselves migrate across the space to watch each one on a path that, similar to the storytellers, is not nearly linear.

Although this project is from several years ago, it is especially relevant in today’s political climate. We often hear stories like this on such a large scale, but this piece not only gives people the chance to tell their own, unique story but also gives the viewers the opportunity to hear a first hand account about what this is really like, rather than the way it is portrayed on the news.

One of my favorite parts about this piece was comparing the tones. There were subtitles at the bottom of the screen so you could follow the story. But there were also headphones so you could hear each person’s voice as they retraced their travels. Surprisingly, many of the people told their story with a very matter of fact tone; as if it was as regular as going to work in the morning. This is amazing to me. As someone who has never lived outside of New York, I can’t imagine having to travel the great distances that these people have for work and to support their families.

The setting and the format of this piece really enhances it. I feel that It definitely wouldn’t have been as strong if it were played on a single screen as a series of episodes. Each time you move to another screen you are surrounded by new people (who could be from anywhere in the world being that this piece is not only in New York City but in the Museum of Modern Art) and embark on a micro journey of sorts yourself. This piece was definitely my favorite of all the gallery or museum work I saw this semester.

For my final outside screening, I saw Neil Beloufa’s The Colonies at Moma.

Out of all of the experimental films I have seen this year, Beloufa’s was the only one that I felt really infused other disciplines into his work.  His exhibition was more of an art installation than it was an experimental film.  He was given a large space to set up his work and used it wisely.  Each section had something slightly different to see.  There were spheres of art, videos, and crafted seating.  Beloufa played a lot with texture, size, and color.

 The clash between rising urban societies and their waste was a theme that ran throughout the piece.  The Colonies was also somewhat interactive because you could actually sit on some of the art and watch pre-recorded videos.  In addition to the videos, there were hidden cameras that recorded the viewers of the exhibit.  The cameras are very ‘big brother is watching’ and admittedly I initially had not even noticed them.

The focal point of the piece is his center video display.  It is a moving display, that uses plastic and glass to project several different videos at a time.  The translucent screens give off a beautiful iridescence and are definitely the first thing people noticed when approaching the exhibit.  Beloufa has several videos screens throughout the exhibit, but some are subtitled in another language and therefore might be hard to understand for most.  However, the theme of trash translates anyway.  All throughout the exhibit there are flattened beverage cans.  Additionally, the art pieces and seating were also made of upcycled/recycled materials.

The Colonies was interesting work from the emerging artist and I am interested to see what he comes up with in the future.

Moma is running Beloufa’s exhibition through June 12.

The Colonies is an exhibition at MoMa by Neil Beloufa, a French artist. He combines sculpture and moving image media to create fascinating viewing spaces. The Colonies is an installation made by hand by Beloufa from inexpensive materials. You’ll see seating arrangement across from a closed CCTV system with monitors and cameras.

You’ll see the installation rotate- its built with pieces of transparent materials with monitors projecting media works. Each monitor projects a different visual scene, and the scenes are nature based with bird sounds. This installation is unique and unlike a film or video, it comes to life as layers of media work projected on actual objects that are most likely recycled.

Not only is this a great environmental purpose, but it’s taken experimental video art to a 3D level.

I went to see the Unfinished Film series at the Met Breuer. The films included two unfinished films by Maya Deren, Witch’s Cradle and Haiti Footage. In the case of Witch’s cradle, it was an unfinished collaboration between Deren and Marcel Duchamp. Haiti Footage was not completed because of Deren’s death. It was interesting for me to learn about the circumstances of incompletion. Before the screening, visiting the unfinished paintings exhibition, I found that I was drawn to and compelled by the reason why the artworks were unfinished. The film was silent, so I couldn’t really discern a strong tempo in the cutting. Many of the shots had strings in them to show the magic elements like  a shoe lace traveling on it’s own or blocks floating. I would assume that in the final edit, they would have darkened or burned that part of the film stock that had the “strings”. Later on in the film, the magic progresses as the witch “appears and disappears” from the screen, lifts objects. At the end the whitch appeared to be in a tent, looking at a mirror and scared of her reflection. I thought the film was interesting, I definitely would have loved to see it finished, but it had an even eerier essence to it because it was unfinished and we have little information about it’s intention and what the final product would have been. It was shot in the early 1940’s yet it seemed to have a modernness to it. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, I think it could be that the witch didn’t physically appear to be of the 1940’s “look”. The film overall was clean in aesthetic so I guess that established a more modern feel.

The second film, Haiti footage was about the Voodoo rituals of Haitians that Deren shot from 1947-1954. This was part of her ethnographic work. The film has a more documentary approach with a voice of god narration. The film stylization is very light, highly exposed which is a different portrayal of voodoo rituals than I would expect. When I think of voodoo rituals, I imagine a dark setting in the back of an apothecary or something. It also was interesting that most of the people wore white to the ceremonies. All in all it was an interesting film although I felt it was less experimental than the first.

The work of Bouchra Khalili is very simple in its presentation. Although it takes up a whole room, it only consists of eight screens. Each video is of an immigrant’s journey told through the visuals of maps. The camera is still the whole time. The emotional investment we get is all from the stories that each person tells using a sharpie and tracing his or her difficult journey in the map. Although we think of immigration as one person going from one place moves to another, it is far more complicated than that. It often takes many cities and many travels to finally settle on a place that you can home. In all eight stories, the immigrants had to jump from place to place, getting there by boat or road.

 

It’s interested how Khalili decided to present these stories. The stories are simple and stripped of much details. We don’t even see the faces of the people. It’s very intriguing that although thousands of people cross over to the United States, we don’t know their stories and we don’t know their faces. They’re seen as a threat. The refugees in Europe are sometimes blamed for horrible acts. In very few visuals or camera tricks, the artist was able to capture the importance of immigration and its political and economic implications.

This past weekend, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project. The piece consists of eight videos that tell the story of eight individuals fleeing violence and persecution, who each trace their migration throughout Europe, North Africa, and/or the Middle East. The videos are static shots of a map of the region, with the migrants hand tracing his or her journey to safety and security.

Although the museum was very crowded, I was able to feel an intimacy with the work. I liked that each screen was pared with bench space and headphones for only three people. Even though the exhibition occupied the sprawling and wide open Marron Atrium, each screen setup felt closed off and intimate. Perhaps this intimacy was also encouraged by the focused nature of the videos. The camera stays focused on the map and the video is entirely led by the refugee who is telling their story.

As has been the case with many of the films we’ve seen in class this semester, I found myself ‘digging into’ the experience and viewing the videos in a trance like, focused state. The stories that were told were incredibly inspirational and tragic. The simplicity and uniformity of the delivery communicates a solemnity that is felt for each video. Although each story is remarkable, and the journeys in some cases span many years, the videos only last a few minutes and the narrative is condensed to logistical matters, with a casual anecdote thrown in every now and again. I am curious to know what kind of direction Khalili gave to her subjects to result in such a uniform product. Perhaps no instructions were given, and each subject responded in the same way due to the similar circumstances they were faced with. Either way, the uniformity helps to unite the eight stories, and orient the viewer to the migrants experience. Presenting these stories with the geography that has been traveled is even more of an eye opener. The shockingly long, arduous journeys that are mapped out in each video are juxtaposed with the travelers narration, which is a very striking way to hear to hear their stories.

I found Khalili’s work to be very moving and engaging. Often in news coverage of the refugee crisis, the sheer volume of refugees can make the problem seem very far away. It is both refreshing and harrowing to hear real, matter of fact, unsentimental stories from the refugees themselves.