![]() Together, these pieces speak of detachment on one hand and of challenge, frustration and at times despair on the other. The concepts of acceptance and rejection are not unique to migration. This piece was initially created to be used as an interactive tool in bringing the plight of migrants to the wider audience, but in the process it highlighted the fact that the bureaucratic decision-making processes affect all of us. I still remember the trepidation of uncertainty about what ‘decision’ it would make for me. ‘I will tell you.' plays on a memory of seemingly innocent paper fortune teller, a game that I played as a child. This is heightened by the idea of chance. The comment on the nature of the processes to which we are often exposed, the difficulty that it creates in seeing the human and feeling human. ![]() ![]() ‘Your fate is sealed’ is one example of this – the idea of a stamp as a symbol of dehumanised, mechanical, faceless, self-perpetuating processes that lead to one of the only two possible outcomes – yes or no.Īustere ‘office’ set up, a suit which symbolised 'Faceless Decision Maker' and the pocket squares with only partially visible text, highlight the ideas of a bureaucratic, emotionless procedural system designed to reveal at each stage only a part of the journey, and to absolve anyone serving that system of the guilt of prejudice, lack of compassion and most of all, responsibility for the decisions that affect the lives of others. I am especially interested in how the symbols of power can be translated into a visual metaphor. Latent they might be, but they have a power of singling out 'The Other' almost as if they were burnt into their cheeks and their foreheads. It is this invisible, hidden attitudes that act as branding irons within our society and we deny them, hide them behind our overt empathy and yet they are there, undeniable. More latent in its form, from a stamp in the passport, to carefully managed mediated messages that affect our perception and foster suspicion of those less fortunate, those with different skin colour or accent, living on the streets or from less privileged backgrounds. Works such as ‘I dub thee…’ - oversized hot branding irons, create a discord between their simple logo-like aesthetics and the historical associations with violence of slave branding which we frequently do not consider as present in that bureaucratic, faceless system which possesses the power to accept or deny. ![]() A migrant myself, having been through a stressful experience of being assessed at the border for my suitability to enter Britain, I could not but respond with anger. Inspired initially by the idea of ‘processing’ migrants on decommissioned oil rigs, and by Franz Kafka’s writings, it explores the idea of how visible symbols and language play a role in a deeper emotional and intellectual engagement with the concept of ‘the other’. Faceless Decision Makers is a large body of work that considers how language, and visible as well as latent symbols of bureaucracy, establish inhuman barricades behind which hides our privileged status quo. ![]()
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