DIALECT
Dialecto
European states have categorized the bureaucracies for crossing their borders. Anyone who avoids or transgresses those controls is subject to an irregular legal condition. During the last decades, each EU state has enforced its own immigration laws to regulate and control the movements of immigrants who enter their territory. If a person enters irregularly into Spanish territory, and he or she has not reached the age of majority (according to a sworn declaration and medical controls), the custody and control of the immigrant remains in the hands of the state. Such custody and control are exerted through a dedicated Center, an internment building that houses immigrants in the same condition. Once the immigrant is legally declared an adult, he or she must wait one to three years to normalize his or her legal status in the country.
Dialect begins within a group of young immigrants who have recently crossed the strait (the maritime border between Morocco and Spain) avoiding border controls. In Seville, they settled while their legal situation is solved or diluted.
The work is divided in two parts; The first, it is a photographic series of the daily life and the expectations of this group in Seville. The photographs explore different experiences, where the body enters into dialogue with memories and the time spent on the waiting period in Spain. The second part, titled Recital, is a video recording, where an action is performed: to read the first four pages of the Spanish immigration law, the document that regulates and controls their migration status.
In the images
Abdoulaye Ndgue, Monir El Komairi, Hamza Gharnili, Zakaria Mourachid, Habib Houari, Mohamed Reda, Mohamed El Azzaoui , Simo Rifi, Younes Braiki, Abdel Mounaim, Hamza Chabouni, Youssef Elhafidi, Bilal Siasse, Aziz Chinni, Soufiane Nafge, Bader Zbira
Recital
four / to fifty pages of Spanish Immigration Law
From the project Dialect / Dialecto
The work consists in a three-channel video recording, where an action is performed: to read the first pages of the Spanish immigration law, the document that regulates and controls their migration status. Due to learning a new language, the struggle to read a bureaucratic document becomes evident. Yet, this document is in fact, the form that controls its legal status in the country. The registration has a duration of 19’ long, and shows the gap between body and language that controls them. The reading, the four five pages, contains the index for the next forty-five pages, which explain in detail the conditions for legal dwell in Spain.
In the images
Habib Houari, Youssef Elhafidi, Bilal Siasse.
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