HD video, 25’46”, 16:9, color, stereo, 2016
Arabic/Catalan/Dutch/English/Flemish/French/German/Hebrew/Italian/Polish/
Romanian/Russian/Spanish/Swiss German spoken
English subtitles
Camera, sound, editing Pieter Geenen
Colour grading, post-production & mastering Michaël Cinquin at Charbon Studio
Supported by TENTOO Payrol Professionals; Flemish Community Commission; Beursschouwburg Brussels; ARGOS Centre for Art and Media Brussels
Around the southernmost tip of Europe, the European and African continent almost seem to touch. That explains the importance of the Strait of Gibraltar as an important migration route, not only for the migratory birds spotted there, but also for refugees trying to reach Europe. At the Mirador del Estrecho panoramic lookout tourists gather to take pictures of the stunning landscape, and comment on the view of Africa that they are being offered. mirador is centered around spectatorship and the act of watching itself. Like silent witnesses the tourist, the immigrant, the audience and the camera look at the landscape and indirectly at each other. They look to the other side, facing a continent that appears like a fata morgana. The seducing power of the image is selling us all a dream while this situation of ‘we’ versus ‘they’ and ‘here’ versus ‘there’ holds up a mirror and reveals a postcolonial gaze in a world of increasing mobility and globalisation.
Selected exhibitions and screenings:
Kino REX Bern 2020; Argos Brussels, 2019; The Raft – Art is (not) Lonely Ostend 2017; One Shot International Short Film Festival Yerevan 2017; ISELP Brussels 2017; Beursschouwburg Brussels 2016