Mucho + Mayo' 08 [ Young Talents Festival ]

In November 2007 I was approached by the coordinator of the festival, Patricio Hernandez, who wanted to invite me to be part of the festival in 2008. As the Festival is focused on young audiences and coordinated by young people, I told him that I would like to propose a project which would look at those "other" youth, who remain invisible to us; young men who left they country in search for a better life.

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Here is the initial proposal:

Every day thousands of people gather on the north african beaches awaiting an opportunity to board a boat that can take them to Spain. "fléchés sans corps" is a multimedia installation that explores a subject so called “the illegal immigration”. it suggests a reflection over a tragic reality of all these people, mostly young ones who perish in their attempts to cross the sea and escape poverty, war and injustice. "fléchés sans corps" is inspired by a poem from the Persian writer, Jalal al-Din Rumi.

"The decision to leave tears me apart
it burns when i remember all my loved ones
although i have left, my heart is still back there,
shrunk
it’s hard to accept the emptiness caused by its absence
I want to find that heart shrunk by separation,
to speak of its pain and its longing everyone
who has left their homeland yearns for the moment of reunion".

In 1989, when I was living in Valencia, I met a young black guy who asked me in English for an address; I didn't know the place but we started talking about the city and so. Frank told me that he had left his country, Nigeria and come to Spain as was they called "illegal" immigrant. We became friends and Frank would explained later how he was forced to leave his family farm after his family was persecuted by police. And how this happened? Because his father had complained against Shell an oil and gas company which had destroyed his land. That year,
Frank's dad was murdered and he, his mother and brother had to leave for Senegal, where would remain until Frank decided to travel to Spain.

Like Frank, many other young men have been forced to leave their homeland and found themselves in a journey which for many of them will finish drowning in the sea. Since 1989, thousand of them have died or disappeared. We will never be able to recover their bodies...
perhaps their families will never know their husband, brother, son...is not longer alive.