Unwanted souvenir
(work in progress)
This work tells the memories of different places from another perspective.
I often see refugees and migrants on the streets and in the metro stations of Paris where I live.
This city, well known as a romantic holiday, is experienced as a place of escape and struggle for survival.
I considered how they would remember Paris as well as the other countries they travelled through.
I then collected different stories of the news about the crisis from other countries to tell their story.
For many of us, these countries are connected to often cliché memories of holidays, where we go to get some sun, eat the local cuisine, and see nice beaches or beautiful mountains.
Of course refugees have very different memories of the same places.
We have remembered the same places in a different way and so we probably want to forget or not know what they experienced there.
I ordered customised snow globes that show/depict some of their experiences I found on the news and then photographed them.
These souvenirs are meant to recall their memories.
When the crisis is over, a place like Lesbos will simply become a beautiful Greek island.
Yet for the refugees show survived their escape in such places, the memories of struggling to survive will remain.
