PASSAGES (2024-)
dye sublimation prints, cotton thread
On November 24, 2021, a boat carrying 30 migrants capsized in the English Channel while attempting to cross from France to the UK. 27 people were found dead, two were rescued, and one was never found.
A few days later, the two survivors testified about how rescue services had effectively abandoned them. Despite receiving calls for help from people in the sinking boat, nearby ships, and requests from British authorities, the coast guard in Gris-Nez deliberately refused to send a rescue ship and turned responding vessels away. Recordings reveal that they even mocked those calling from the water as they were dying.
The attempted crossing took place in the same waters off the French coast as the Dunkirk Evacuation of 1940, in which more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians were saved after commercial and civilian vessels came to their aid. Yet, on the 24th November 2021, these same distress calls were deliberately ignored.
This body of work—which includes snippets of testimony accompanied by images of the English Channel as taken from the French shore—reflects upon the systemic failures, abject xenophobia, and obloquy toward immigrants that surround the ongoing migrant crisis. Separated not by geography but by a span of time, we are confronted with a stark contextual juxtaposition: ultimately, the difference between a rescue and a tragedy lies in the hands of those who choose whether to heed the call.
dye sublimation prints, cotton thread
On November 24, 2021, a boat carrying 30 migrants capsized in the English Channel while attempting to cross from France to the UK. 27 people were found dead, two were rescued, and one was never found.
A few days later, the two survivors testified about how rescue services had effectively abandoned them. Despite receiving calls for help from people in the sinking boat, nearby ships, and requests from British authorities, the coast guard in Gris-Nez deliberately refused to send a rescue ship and turned responding vessels away. Recordings reveal that they even mocked those calling from the water as they were dying.
The attempted crossing took place in the same waters off the French coast as the Dunkirk Evacuation of 1940, in which more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians were saved after commercial and civilian vessels came to their aid. Yet, on the 24th November 2021, these same distress calls were deliberately ignored.
This body of work—which includes snippets of testimony accompanied by images of the English Channel as taken from the French shore—reflects upon the systemic failures, abject xenophobia, and obloquy toward immigrants that surround the ongoing migrant crisis. Separated not by geography but by a span of time, we are confronted with a stark contextual juxtaposition: ultimately, the difference between a rescue and a tragedy lies in the hands of those who choose whether to heed the call.
