Conversation with a stranger
Inspiration for my project became a book Pierre Bessard, Chattanooga, the Green factory. The book is a story showing the stereotypes of the American dream
,,once I arrived in Chattanooga, I discovered a totally different country. A life separate from the one I had briefly glimpsed while covering stories for French newspapers in major U.S. cities. Something very different from what Europeans, sometimes stuck in their stereotypes, could perceive from the other side of the Atlantic.,, quote from Pierre Bessard.
People judge situations, places and other people on the basis of unproven description ... we can not really know how it is and what is the truth, as we do not extended research to the different sources of searching.
I decided that my conversation with a stranger, should refer to the common stereotypical opinion about immigrants.
As an emigrant, I have to fight the discrimination and one directional opinion .... the emigrants are guilty of everything ... and they come here only for benefits or to take somebody job.
quote from :
,,The number of migrants moving to Britain for family reasons from outside of the EU decreased in the late noughties, but the Observatory said the numbers have "since begun to increase".
,,Work is often cited as the main reason migrants come to UK ,,
Work: Have immigrants “taken our jobs”? from Conservative Home
,,the immigration issue is clearly not just about employment and pay – but also about social cohesion, identity, the effects on public services and many other factors.,, -www.conservativehome.com
,,For the past three years, the number of emigrants has been rising .... With bad weather, with lots of crime, with high taxes, with agressive people,,
I know from personal experience, that in order to be an immigrant, you can not only be guided by the desire of profit, because every emigrant has to start from scratch and most frequently arrives to the new country into the ,,unknown ,, naively counting on good fortune.
On this subject I returned to photography of Lewis Hine, whose work I have described in previous posts
Lewis Hine (1874-1940) - American photojournalist. As a sociologist, he dealt with the social conditions prevailing in America in the early twentieth century. He was self-taught and the photograph was for him a means to achieve social reform. In the pictures he was showing the social problems affecting American society namely, injustice and exploitation of the workers. He has photographed immigrants, factory workers during hard physical work in difficult conditions.
My conversation with a stranger
My pictures are presented stories different from the stereotype of an emigrant ... a picture showing the attachment to the family and the need to be with loved ones.
,, Separation from a loved one is worse than poverty,, - said 21 year-old Anna, my stranger immigrant - the main person of my interview,,.
.. Anna is a young mother who came to the UK 3 months ago she lives in a small room with her son and fiance, at her sister's house, she dreams of their own place, with a comfortable bed, a wardrobe, and a shelf for books. Anna likes Sundays and mornings because it's the only day when the whole family is together.
It was very difficult for me to talk to Anna because she was ashamed of it that she has only one suitcase and a mattress instead of beds, it was very assertive conversation.
While working on the task I have experimented with different forms of expression such as typography and sound, I was not sure which form of presentation of work I have to choose a film or a static picture.
Sound and picture - https://youtu.be/kiTpeMRe7qQ short assembly with multiple audio tracks from the interview, as a form of my experiment with sound.
