The art of protest: Pair’s 23-mile walk to highlight migrant plight
Artists use performance to draw attention to 70th year of UN Refugee Convention, writes Catriona Stewart
TWO artists have walked from Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre in Strathaven to the Home Office building in Govan as a response to the 70th year of the UN Refugee Convention.
Paria Goodarzi and Frank Llinas Casas used the 23-mile walking performance to question whether the anniversary is a time for celebration or protest, against a backdrop of concern about the UK’S meeting of obligations under the convention.
The pair, who form the art collective Distanced Assemblage, wore engraved mirrors on their backs as they walked to represent themes such as identity and under-representation of refugees.
Mr Casas, who arrived in the UK from Venezuela six years ago, and Ms Goodarzi, who came from Iran to the UK in 2012, met while studying at the Glasgow School of Art and formed Distanced Assemblage as a way of exploring and promoting migrant art in the UK through social engagement work and public art projects.
When they responded to a call for commissions from the Scottish Refugee Council, Ms Goodarzi was collating her travel documents and papers from the Home Office during her five-year British citizenship application.
She said: “I was doing some work with the ideas of democracy and freedom and we were talking about how I live in a democratic country but I don’t have freedom. We live in a democracy but with the process of migration we struggle, we don’t have freedom at all, we are under a lot of pressure and the idea started from there, to question this anniversary.
“This walk could be something monumental for the future in how people will respond to this question, which is should be celebrate this anniversary or question it?”
The UN Refugee Convention’s stated aim is to guarantee freedom of movement but concerns have been raised about the current UK Government’s hostile immigration policies and whether those meet the terms of the Convention.
As the artists were pitching their work, named AMBER, to the Scottish Refugee Council, the situation in Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, was unfolding. Local people gathered to prevent the removal of two Indian nationals by the Home Office, a protest that generated international headlines.
Mr Casas said: “The system is structured in a way that there are so many flaws that go against what we want to be as a society and go against the UN Convention.
“Right when we proposed this work Kenmure Street was happening, Paria was making work about her own story, I was making work about my mum joining me in the UK. My mum is also escaping the situation in Venezuela and had to pay so much money for having her biometrics taken because the Home Office took the decision to outsource that system.
“We had to travel to Newcastle because the centre here had no appointments until after June 31 deadline – so many things are happening that are invisible.”
Last Monday, they set off from Dungavel, near Strathaven, at 6am and walked together for the first part of their journey. The artists said that, as they waited outside the detention centre for the performance piece to begin, guards came out to move them on.
For both artists, the walk was an emotional experience and a chance for reflection – literal reflection of the landscape in their mirrors and a thoughtful reflection on the experience of movement and migration.
After around nine hours of walking, Mr Casas and Ms Goodarzi stopped in Queen’s Park, on Glasgow’s south side, to tie white ribbons to a tree planted by the Scottish Refugee Council before continuing to Brand Street.
The day-long walk gave them time to think about their central question of celebration and protest.
She said: “It is a time to protest, to stand against the power that is controlling people in this way.”
Mr Casas added: “If we can bring this question into people’s houses for at least a couple of minutes so they question themselves, that would be success.
“For people to question this and ask, what is my role in all of this?”
We live in a democracy but with the process of migration we struggle