Mapping Skin Deep 2014

Multimedia interactive installation about forced displacement. 

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Mapping skin deep is an audiovisual public installation consisting of 8 portraits with testimonies from refugee and undocumented immigrants currently residing in Montreal and Mexico City. Their bodies have been scarred in post-production tracing the route they took from their homeland to their current city of residence, hence mapping them skin deep. Through their testimonies they share the wisdom they have acquired, revealing the courage, the lessons learnt and their thoughts from the experience of being uprooted and rebuilding their foundations.

Using art to help amplify their voices by representing themselves in the public sphere. 

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Viewers are invited to interact with the piece by using a translucent map that is to be placed over the scars. The length of the scar traces the route they took from their country of origin to their current city of residence, its deepness/thickness is proportional to the impact that the displacement has had in their lives and the stage of healing represents how recently it took place. At the same time the public plays with the maps, they can also listen to the testimonies on individual speakers for each image, testimonies that give count to the way refugees and undocumented immigrants have turned their displacement into a life lesson of courage and audacity.