Virtual Migrants: Terminal Frontiers (2004)

… The name of the group of artists, Virtual Migrants, gives us substantial clues as to the depth and scope of the debates being opened up in this exhibition… 

…The visual tactics of Virtual Migrants represent a new kind of artistic engagement for a new century, a century that has brought with it ever more marked and pronounced evidence of the previously mentioned repercussions and accumulations. These artists examine aspects of the current times, but cannot (and choose not to) do so in ways that are disinterested. Instead, they locate their own experiences at the heart of their practice. In turn, the collective practice of these artists is located at the apex where different ideas of the ‘migrant’ meet, separate, and overlap. These artists use a variety of new media. In particular, they make extensive and significant use of digital film, video, and what might loosely be called ‘installation’ art. Throughout the history of the medium, lens-based representation in its various forms has been used to objectify and demonise Black people. Perhaps, more accurately, we might speak of the medium being used to validate a range of spurious or problematic images of Black people. Television tends to validate popular prejudices, but by embracing and making considered and intelligent use of new media, Virtual Migrants successfully undermine the persistent media typecasting of the ‘migrant’ and encourage us to question prejudices that have taken on an almost primeval certainty. The broad sweeps of migration, displacement, belonging, and home are approached via the convincing and compelling vehicle of the artists’ individual stories and personal experiences. The personal and the political deeply intertwined.

Virtual Migrants take as their general subject matter the demonisation, within the UK and Europe, of the ‘different’ ‘foreigner’, the latter-day ‘refugee’ – the ‘asylum-seeker’ and the ‘economic migrant’. Recent and ongoing world events have given the work of these artists additional focus, urgency and relevance, not only because of the continued displacement of peoples across the globe, but also because of how these world events have impacted on those living – and those seeking to live – in the UK…

The above extracts are from a text, Virtual Migrants: Terminal Frontiers, written by Eddie Chambers. On the back of the brochure: "This is number 15 in an ongoing series of small publications featuring commissioned writings profiling new work exhibited at Street Level Photoworks [Glasgow].

Exhibition held 24 August - 2 October 2004