Migrant Journal (Isabel Seiffert & Michaela Büsse)

Description

Migration involves far more than just individuals. Dictated by shifting markets and natural forces, the movement of goods has shaped from international to local spaces as well as landscapes. The traffic of goods has increased dramatically during the Industrial Revolution to develop into the present day’s extremely complex global commercial patterns. From the influence of African slave trade routes on the centenary traditional Portuguese carolino rice, to the impact of Japanese crops on the Bolivian countryside: there are more intricate facets of migration whose pertinence equals to human fluxes. Besides goods and people, ‘impalpable’ flows of data, ideas and information now constitute a new spatial challenge to understand. MIGRANT aims at exploring the relationship between these elements, events, journeys and spaces bound under the idea of ‘migration’ in all its forms, determinant to understand today’s society: the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals in Hong Kong, the rise of xenophobic political forces in Europe, the San Diego-Tijuana border, ships full of Sudanese and Eritrean capsizing in the Mediterranean sea, an antenna at the top of a church tower in London pointing to a satellite dish at the top of a grain silo in Dunkirk. Migration is creating new spaces that MIGRANT wants to explore.