Press. voanews.com
Human Flow by
internationally acclaimed artist and activist Ai Weiwei, highlights the plight
of refugees around the world. The Chinese dissident is not the first to make a
documentary about the displaced, but his film captures the flow of humanity on
a planetary scale.
Ai filmed in 23
different countries in 40 different refugee camps where people fleeing war,
environmental crises and religious persecution were staying. His goal is to
show that the flood of refugees has global repercussions.
“You are
forcibly robbing this human being of all aspects that would make human life not
just tolerable but meaningful in many ways,” says a voice in the documentary. According
to the film, over 65 million people in the world today have been forcibly
displaced from their homes. Using cameras attached to drones, Ai Weiwei records
humanity’s movement from up high.
Ai, a renowned
artist known for his massive art installations with social and political
connotations around the world, is an unassuming, soft- spoken man with a
thoughtful expression. Sitting opposite me in one of the studios of the Voice
of America, he snaps my picture on his iPhone along with many others he has
taken that day of people and exhibits on VOA’s hallways. I feel like an art
installation. I ask him what prompted him to make a film about human flow. “It
was serendipitous,” he responds.
An unexpected
opportunity
While
vacationing on the Greek island of Lesbos with his family, Ai saw a boat full
of refugees approaching. He started filming immediately on his phone. Known for
his political activism against communist China, his imprisonment, torture and
subsequent exile, he lives in Berlin now and one would hardly believe that
anything could take the Chinese dissident by surprise. But as he relates,
filming and living with refugees in makeshift camps was unlike anything he had
experienced before.
“We have been
hearing about the refugees all the time in the news. But to see a real group of
people come down is very different. You see the children, the women, and you
see those elderly people and they are tired, they are frightened, they
basically risk their lives, give up everything, to come to just try to find
safe conditions. Even though I grew up in a communist society we didn’t see
these kinds of things happen. So, for me it is a shock, and I think it’s an
opportunity to learn about what really happened. “
Human Flow shows
masses fleeing wars, religious persecution, and environmental disasters. At
times his film feels like another one of his enormous art installations, with
humanity playing a dual lead, both as a massive organism and as single
individuals staring into a camera. The effect is more visceral than
intellectual and that is exactly what Ai Weiwei wants to convey. “We wanted to
build an understanding about human flow. Human flow as always happens in human
history. In many cases, it is part of our humanity and our civilization,” he
says.
Stemming the
flow
But the social
anomaly of our times, says the filmmaker, is the effort by countries to stem
that flow by preventing refugees from crossing borders and integrating into new
societies. After a harrowing sea voyage and days of walking, many refugees from
the Middle East make their way to northern Greece, only to be stopped on its
border with Macedonia.
“Over seventy
borders have built up their fences and walls and have forbidden any refugee to
pass through. So, by doing that, they are really not only stopping the life
line of those refugees to try to find a safe place, even just temporarily
across the border and go to another location, but are also putting them in
extremely dangerous conditions."
Ai talks about
human smuggling and sex trafficking of a very vulnerable population, mostly of
women and children. At a refugee camp in Turkey, he films an exasperated doctor
trying to take care of the young. He points to a baby: “two months old, and
born here but he didn’t have any vaccinations.” The deplorable health
conditions are one of the many problems plaguing the stateless. A man stands
knee high in mud, looking at a cemetery filled with drowned refugees, relatives
and friends. He hides his head in his hands and sobs.
A warning for
the future
Ai Weiwei warns
if we don’t save those people from displacement, entire generations -- born
without identity, prospects for a better life or a country -- will be
vulnerable to extremism and radicalization.
“I think, if you
see so many children growing up under these conditions, in this 65 million
people, now it’s getting much bigger, with 420,000 refugees added from Myanmar,
how will these children behave, when they grow up, after they have seen how
their parents have been badly treated, unfairly treated, the world watching but
doing nothing. What kind of image would remain in their minds?”
Ai Weiwei is
very critical of Europe and the United States for lacking empathy, leadership
and vision about the refugee issue. He sees the elections of ultra-right
governments in Europe and of Donald Trump in the US as dire for refugees
worldwide. “It certainly requires global leaders and also every citizen to be
involved to solve the problem,“ he says, warning, if this does not change, no
one’s future is safe.