Incoming
Richard Mosse
Curve Gallery - The Barbican
15 FEBRUARY - 23 APRIL 17
Free
Incoming is Richard Mosse's exhibition which documents the European refugee crisis. Mossee uses a heat rather than light-sensitive camera, creating black and white solarised images which help to blur the identities of the subjects included.
The heat camera, originally used for military purposes, can document a human body from up to 30km away. What I found particularly eye capturing was the precise detail the camera achieves, all the way back to the buildings in the distance. The exhibition consists of an initial series of screens, followed by two large photographs of refugee camps, finishing with a three screen film projected onto a massive space, which runs for almost an hour.
Whilst the images are impressive in themselves, it is the film which really tells the story, and engrains itself into your mind. You are presented with a number of scenes, almost guided through a loose storyboard - refugees arrive on a speedboat, the take shelter at a holding place, fighter jets get ready for battle, fires are made to move refugees on. The endless queing and shipping of the people shows them treated like cattle, whilst somehow in the process, making them appear all the more human.
The heat-sensitive camera creates some absolute stunning visuals, crisp and sharp images do not suffer despite being projected onto a screen 3 times taller than myself. The black and white solarisation of the image leaves skin colour ambiguous and identity anonymous. These people appear as humans, but not the type we know: they are obscured - uncanny - slightly off. You may describe them as 'Other' - a word which haunted me throughout my English Degree. These people are other, in more ways than one, and this film seeks to empathise with their position, rather than ostracise and isolate them from society.
Two parts of the film which particularly stood out to me was firstly, some young boys engaging in a play fight at one of the camps or 'holdings'. This imagery shows us that despite everything going on around them, children do not change. They are innocent and happy and this moment is incredibly human. The second part is imagery of an older man praying - he looks distressed, dismal, hopeless. Despite his colouring and identity being obscured by the camera, his expressions and feelings are clear as day. Once he has finished his prayer it is almost as if a physical weight has been lifted from his shoulders and it is touching to be able to see the difference in his physicality and demeanour.
The film ranges from subtle simplicity - a foil blanket blows in the breeze, a seagull drifts over land, a fire in the distance dances to complex imagery of suffering but also of hope, and a desire to keep going. This exhibition is one of the most moving, mesmerizingly beautiful things I have ever witnessed, and it is for this reason that you really must catch it before it's too late.
OVERALL RATING: *****
https://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=19949
