A Camp is a Wall in a Forest

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v3i02.2697

Keywords:

migration, identity, Afghanistan, Finland, reception center

Abstract

A camp is a place where mohajers live in a state of waiting. Mohajers are asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants in precarious situations and their camps are reception centers, detention centers, and temporary shelters. Camps are often located in remote areas, effectively isolating the individuals living in them. They are facilities for storing humans, full of invisible walls, and windows to remind people that the world they can see through them is out of their reach.

Author Biographies

Anna Knappe, Independent visual artist and researcher

Anna Knappe is a visual artist, filmmaker, and researcher based in Helsinki. She holds a Master of Fine Art from The Academy of Fine Art in Oslo is currently attending post-master studies in the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.

Anna Knappe and Amir Jan have been working as an artist duo since 2010, producing cinematic works, media installations and photographic works dealing with the various aspects of global migration from different perspectives including both humans and other living species. They collaborate closely with the Afghan diaspora communities in Europe, aiming to empower the migrant minority communities to narrate their own collective stories instead of being the actors or subjects in the narratives created by and for the purpose of the majority groups. Their work analyses how words and language form the ‘Mohajer’ identity of Afghan migrants, never-ending migrancy, life in camps, and stories of home by people without a home country. Anna Knappe and Amir Jan are currently collaborating in a multidisciplinary project combining sociological and anthropological perspectives with art. The research project, titled “Neighbourhood Solidarities as a Response to the Asylum ‘Crisis’”, is situated in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.

Amir Jan

Amir Jan is a visual artist and filmmaker from Afghanistan. 

Anna Knappe and Amir Jan have been working as an artist duo since 2010, producing cinematic works, media installations and photographic works dealing with the various aspects of global migration from different perspectives including both humans and other living species. They collaborate closely with the Afghan diaspora communities in Europe, aiming to empower the migrant minority communities to narrate their own collective stories instead of being the actors or subjects in the narratives created by and for the purpose of the majority groups. Their work analyses how words and language form the ‘Mohajer’ identity of Afghan migrants, never-ending migrancy, life in camps, and stories of home by people without a home country. Anna Knappe and Amir Jan are currently collaborating in a multidisciplinary project combining sociological and anthropological perspectives with art. The research project, titled “Neighbourhood Solidarities as a Response to the Asylum ‘Crisis’”, is situated in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.

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Published

2019-10-21

How to Cite

Knappe, A., & Jan, A. (2019). A Camp is a Wall in a Forest. Journal of Anthropological Films, 3(02), e2697. https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v3i02.2697

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 02 (2019)

Section

Films

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Anna Knappe, Amir Jan, Laura Böök

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.