Daniel G. Andújar, Isaias Griñolo, Enrica Camporesi, Elena Mazzi, Daniela Ortiz, Oliver Ressler and Zanny Begg
Walls, borders, the right of asylum and nationality are fundamental issues to decode the global world we live in. The audiovisual projects in this exhibition use footage images, documentary films, performance or fictionalised reality to tackle key concepts such as democracy, universal citizenship and the global economy of bodies.
Elena Mazzi partecipates with the work Performing the Self: the interview.
ELENA MAZZI (Reggio Emilia, Italia, 1984) & ENRICA CAMPORESI (Forly, Italy, 1985)
Performing the Self: the interview, 2017. 3-channel video installation, 50’
Performing the self — the interview was made in collaboration with researcher Enrica Camporesi. It stages the impossible conversation between a protection officer and an asylum seeker just before the interpreter arrives. Drawing on interviews with protection officers, asylum seekers, recognized refugees, lawyers and social workers as well the academic literature, “Performing the self — the interview” zooms in on the protection officer and the asylum seeker as co-producers of a dialogical but reliable and consistent life story, a new and reasonable plot whose crucial goal is to be awarded with the asylum status.
The interview is a real “make or break moment” in the life of the asylum seeker. And it puts the protection officer under the immense pressure of judging someone else’s future risk of persecution mainly based on his own oral testimony, while tolerating the intrinsic uncertainty of such a decision making process. What might happen before such an overloaded conversation begins? “Performing the self — the interview” builds up an imaginary space that redefines the existing protocol of questions and answers, mutual expectations and power relations.