Giorgio Morra PHOTOGRAPHY
Bad GAME (2)
The successive effort to close the Balkan route in 2016 has made the perpetual attempt to cross the borders of the European Union a feat of strength for people on the move (POMs). In hope of receiving asylum, transit countries become involuntary waiting rooms.
The photographs highlight the dark side despite these legal agreements and lend visibility to the personal fates of people who, in the interstice between push back and transit, repeatedly engage in the bad game.
The successive effort to close the Balkan route in 2016 has made the perpetual attempt to cross the borders of the European Union a feat of strength for people on the move (POMs). In hope of receiving asylum, transit countries become involuntary waiting rooms.
The series "Bad Game" features photographs taken in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia over a period from 2019 to 2022. The images show the precarious living conditions and fragile habitat of thousands of POMs each year along the EU's external border. The title follows a cynically interpreted conceptual meaning of game, which is emblematic of the continuous attempt to cross the border. The so-called "game", is the endeavor to pass undetected through countries in order to avoid being apprehended and illegally deported by the border authorities. It recurantly results in a pushback, the illegal and forcible repatriation of refugees across the external border, and denies people the right to a fair asylum procedure. By shifting their living space to stay in "squads" and camps near the border, people who are mostly refugees from countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan or North Africa, repeatedly end up in precarious living conditions. It is in these places that the fate and vulnerability of each individual seeking protection for a future in the EU is revealed. Photography, as a means of visualizing these problematic living conditions and the lack of prospects of the refugees, follows the claim to make reality become image. "Bad Game" thus visualizes the dialectical course of flight and focuses on aspects of it. Through the enactment of a European Charter of Fundamental Rights, the member states have committed themselves to protecting refugees and guaranteeing the right to asylum.
The photographs highlight the dark side despite these legal agreements and lend visibility to the personal fates of people who, in the interstice between push back and transit, repeatedly engage in the bad game.
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia. 2019-2022
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