You know what I mean
by a BBC headline newsreader voice; of stoic steady British composure laced
with a hint of carefully curated empathy suggested by a low tone and the fading
out of that kind of Whitehall-drumbeat (that is slightly reminiscent of the
start of the Eastenders theme) that
soundtracks the opening sequence of the evening news. Well that is the voice
that portrays the basic facts of the European migrant crisis to us through our
screens as we sit safely at home. It’s a voice that is tactically devoid of
expressive sympathy and realism. It’s an umbrella voice, and most of us can far
better recall that voice than we can the stories it tells.
Mainstream media in
Britain is wonderfully successful at aligning all human experience and
suffering into one tight slice of information, creating a homogenised portrayal
of hugely complex and diverse issues. This is what has happened with ‘the
migrant crisis’; it is the crisis we seem to hear about, not the migrants, and
with to much emphasis on the ‘problems’ it creates for Brits.
The crisis is an
all-encompassing happening with implications for Europeans, Brits, Eritreans,
Sudanese, Kurds, Afghanis, Syrians, Libyan and many more. But who are those
people? The crisis is conveyed to us by that voice; that voice that is
respectful of sorrow but somehow psychologically eliminates all those people
who are really suffering and morphs the problem into one for those of us native
to British shores. It is our problem in that we need to address it and prompt
solutions, but it is not a problem for us in that we are not the ones suffering
the direct and immediate basic human suffering in this situation. Lost in all
this mess of worry and desperate composure are the real and personal stories of
every individual who is sitting knee deep in the mud of Calais, or staring at
their burned tent, with a whole history of their own lives, families, loves,
ambitions and passions behind them.
At what point did we
forget that the ‘BBC voice’ and the mainstream press cannot begin to tell these
stories?
The Migration Museum
Project in Shoreditch is offering an alternative; it’s exhibit 'Call Me By My Name' is offering a voice for the
individuals at the centre of ‘the migrant crisis’, told in their own words.
Sometimes they are voices of despair, hopelessness, trauma and extreme
unsurmountable loss of loved ones, home and identity (as a citizen, a family
member, a professional, and even as a human being). Sometimes though they are
voices of determination and grace and sometimes even of hope.
It is true that there
are so many grassroots press projects in Britain that aim to portray the truth
of the migrant crisis, but rarely do they focus on the individual. A lack of
this focus does not allow for the authority of feeling and expression that
everyone deserves.
I also worry that we
are using migrant culture as feature of our own cultural capital; the photos,
the writing, the tweets. If we don’t give every person a voice then why should
we take what we consider their experience to be, qualified by our own
projections upon the situation, and voice it ourselves through our screens and
on our gallery walls and in our exhibitions of photojournalistic prestige? It’s
all exposure, but who composed the picture?
We are scared of our ‘culture’
being tampered with by new arrivals, but why then do we unquestioningly
appropriate other cultures with our entertainment, our news and our lifestyle
choices.
In the Migration
Museum we are introduced to a Sudanese artist called Alpha who was living in
The Jungle in Calais. I’ll leave the story to him, but one of his paintings is
called ‘My art can go to Britain but I cannot’.
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| ‘My art can go to Britain but I cannot’ - Alpha |
While his painting –
the inanimate canvas covered in paint - has been eagerly packaged up and
transported to Shoreditch for display and to tell a story, Alpha – the human
being with feelings and life – has to stay in the cold and rain and wait out his
uncertain present in anticipation of his uncertain future wondering if he’ll be
accepted anywhere again, or even left to be for a moment. His painting’s
present is very certain, it’s future will be considered well I’m sure.
I’m not at all saying
that his painting on display is distasteful – it’s a fantastic artistic vehicle
for Alpha to tell his story in his own words and his own tone. However, and I’m
sure the Migration Museum know this because the exhibition is very sensitively
managed and completely focused on the autonomy of voice, it is an ironic
example to behold: we let the culture of ‘other’ demographics and groups in,
but only when it enhances or suits our culture.
As long as the
expansion of the developed world has been spreading and growing and
capitalising on foreign cultures and resources, there have been voices telling
stories. More often than not though they are unqualified voices telling stories
that are not theirs to tell. Hundreds of individuals, cultures and demographics
have been misrepresented, and often from an unsympathetic and objectifying
angle, causing alienation, marginalisation, stereotyping and xenophobia. Of
course this has caused an ‘us and them’ mentality on both sides, further
widening the void and deepening the mistrust and defensiveness. Cooperation has
been far from attainable. As long as we, as a nation of individuals used to
having freedom of speech and being able to pass judgment without fear of rebuke
or death, keep speaking out of turn, then individual stories will be lost and
empathy will vapourise further. Even the most empathetic telling of someone
else’s story is not the right story, even if it’s a true story. Every person
should be able to tell their experience in their own words, or indeed in their
own pictures, or their own silence.
Today is the last day of the Migration Museum project. It's open until 8pm tonight. Please go!
It's also Refugee Week this week and there are events and social media campaigns going on to take part in and learn from, and to welcome refugees.
Here are a couple of these:
the 'Simple Acts' campaign by Counterpoint Arts, asking you to imagine your own kind act of welcome to a refugee.
And here are a few hashtags to use:
#RefugeeWeek
#CalaisStories
#Refugees
#Calltoaction
#Migrantvoices
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| Another piece by Alpha using spare tarpaulin as his canvas. Interesting that so many London art students use tarpaulin, and I have never managed to decipher why (other than it looks quite nice!), and this is the most loaded and qualified use of it i've seen. |
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