Full Description
Imagine a world in which each individual has a fundamental right to be reborn. This idle dream haunts Hilde Van Gelder's associative travelogue that takes Allan Sekula's sequence Deep Six / Passer au bleu (1996/1998) as a touchstone for a dialogue with more recent artworks zooming in on the borderscape near the Channel Tunnel, such as those by Sylvain George and Bruno Serralongue.
Combining ethnography, visual materials, political philosophy, cultural geography, and critical analysis, Ground Sea proceeds through an innovative methodological approach. Inspired by the meandering writings of W.G. Sebald, Javier Marias, and Roland Barthes, Van Gelder develops a style both interdisciplinary and personal.
Resolutely opting for an aquatic perspective, Ground Sea offers a powerful meditation on the indifference of an increasingly divided European Union with regard to considerable numbers of persons on the move, who find themselves stranded close to Calais. The contested Strait of Dover becomes a microcosm where our present global challenges of migration, climate change, human rights, and neoliberal surveillance technology converge.
Contents
Contents of Volume I Preface: Water-Bound Embarkation: Bone Point Acknowledgments Introduction: Sea-Stricken
PART I: Blade 1. Running on Water 2. Ground Sea Plates 3. Ossuary 4. Kairology 5. Reliquiae Notes
Deep Six / Passer au bleu (1996/1998) by Allan Sekula
Contents of Volume II
PART II: Shuttle 6. The Right to Reappear 7. Naming the Person without a Name 8. Fools & Rights: Leaves for an Illustrated Reader Plates 9. This Precious Jewel 10. Plotting
At Anchor: Pearl Diving
Notes Bibliography
