Refugees humanitarian crisis: from aesthetics towards ethics

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention is a United Nations treaty which defines this type of immigrant as “a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it”. According to the UN, the world is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. Nowadays, the group of people displaced from their countries fleeing political persecution, terrorist groups and wars has reached the figure of 65.6 million (sum since these numbers started being compiled). Currently, about half of the annual flow of refugees is Syrian, fleeing civil war in their country since 2011. The news privileges numbers and scenes of anonymous, ragged dead or sick or hungry people, crowded in some boat or refugee camp, or in an endless walk. Painful scenes which, through great recurrence, end up losing their impact and power of awareness. Brazil, traditionally open to refugees, withdrew from the Global Pact on Migration immediately after the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro, although this group of inhabitants represent a mere 0.05% of the population. For the newly elected, the theme has little impact, and they give ample evidence of lack of desensitization towards it. It is against this kind of psychological numbness that the Syrian painter and filmmaker Abdala Al Omari developed an artistic project entitled "The vulnerability series", aiming precisely at resemantizing the crisis. For this, the artist modifies the aesthetics of the representation of powerful leaders and causes ethical discursive disturbance, in the desire to modify the culture’s interdiscourse. Analyzed from the perspective of French semiotics, a testimony of the artist will be presented, followed by a 2'10" video containing the same testimony plus sound effects and 14 pictorial works of his own. The contrast will mark, we hope to make explicit, the aesthetic strength of the meeting of the verbal with the audiovisual, producing a poignant and afflictive text, capable of awakening sensibilities asleep by the buffering power of repetition.
País: 
Brasil
Temas y ejes de trabajo: 
Los pasajes y articulaciones entre semióticas verbales y no verbales
Semióticas de los lenguajes visuales, sonoros y audiovisuales
Institución: 
Universidade de São Paulo
Mail: 
beth.harkot@uol.com.br

Estado del abstract

Estado del abstract: 
Accepted
Desarrollado por gcoop.