C-R92/BY
Due to some of the most divisive family
immigration policies in the world, thousands of British families are forcibly
separated by the Home Office. As a result, they must communicate with each
other via ‘modern means of communication’, leading to the rise of what are now
being referred to as ‘Skype Families’.
C-R92/BY seeks to investigate
how one maintains a relationship with a family member who has been physically
and geographically removed from one’s life and is reduced to a two-dimensional
image; what does it mean to take the irrefutably unique and transfer it into
the infinitely replicable?
With the possibility of the artists own wife facing
deportation in the coming year, a personal reflection of Fordham’s own experience is
weaved together with those of other families, using images, documents,
testimonies and more to explore the hardships of detention, and the fight for
family life.
C-R92/BY gives voice to the suffering of
families who find themselves in such circumstances, including potentially his own; they are the unwilling players in a painful game of politics.
Furthermore, as Britain prepares to leave
the EU, this work serves as a warning to the possible futures of many
international families - and even, perhaps, to us all - as we transition ever
further into a world in which we are defined by our online presence, and build
relationships via images that appear on our screens.
