September- 22nd October 2011
Watching a film of a man describe how he sees ‘bodies in the water’, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a retold nightmare. Yet this film is one of many shown on a television set that has been positioned amongst the reconstructed wreckage of a migrant boat. Lucy Wood’s latest exhibition, Distant Neighbours 3, is a powerful portrayal of the dangerous journey from North Africa to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a journey that thousands of African migrants take every year.
Occupying the entire space of the gallery is the installation of a boat that has been ripped, torn and broken. Oars stretch across the room in every direction. It has been painted white, a ghostly expression Wood’s says of the boat graveyard that now litters the Lampedusa shore.
The installation conveys spatial tension. The boat appears huge but only in the gallery. As a migrant boat that is intended to battle with the elements it is tiny. It’s violent, attacked appearance is an explicit reminder of the dangers of migration.
The silence of the wreckage is juxtaposed by a collection of films. Each film is of a migrant or local who tells their story and their version of events. The layering of voices is claustrophobic and distressing much akin to the experience of the migrants.
The conflict of silence and noise is the physical reconstruction of Wood’s own experience on the island, during which a massive rescue operation took place. As migrants enter the harbour, Wood’s says, their shouting can be heard from the shore, as they step onto land this turns into a silent disbelief.
The installation is ultimately an anthropological study into human reaction in crisis and expresses a contradiction to the media portrayal of social and racial tensions between locals and migrants. The white wreck is a tombstone in the boat graveyard. By investing it with the stories of migrants and locals, Wood’s has delicately resurrected it and successfully altered the perception of immigration.
-Sian Gray
