PREFACE
Remixing Europe
Migrants, Media, Representation, Imagery VIVIAN PAULISSEN, EUROPEAN CULTURAL FOUNDATION
mi·grant (mī'grənt): n. Someone or something that moves from one region
to another by chance or plan.
How are migrants portrayed in mainstream media in Europe? How does this affect the imagery of what a migrant is, or of the Europe we live in or the Europe we’re heading towards? What are the perspectives of migrants? Remixing Europe is a challenging publication in its attempt to answer some of these questions. It is part of Remapping Europe, a programme by the Doc Next Network that investigates the tools and concepts of remixing media as a method of re-viewing, re-investigating and re-considering prevailing imageries of migrants in European societies. “One must be as wary of images as of words” as one of Europe’s great film directors Harun Farocki has put it. There is no such thing as an aseptic or pure image: every image provokes a multiplicity of imageries, gestures, thoughts, ideas, prejudices, and ways of looking. Both in form and in content, this publication is unconventional in its approach to deconstructing and debating some prevailing imageries of migrants across Europe and specifically in Spain, the UK, Turkey and Poland. In this publication, four individual case studies of incidents that occurred recently in the media provide the starting points for an analysis of country-specific, cultural and historical contexts that influence public perception of, and general attitudes to, migrants and migration. An eclectic mix of images from mainstream media sources – footage “found” and introduced by the cultural organisations of the Doc Next Network – represent how migrants are portrayed, or in some cases, made invisible in each country. The images are snapshots of the representation of migrants in media: they show how migrants are stereotyped, criminalised, racially categorised, objectified and subjected to hate speech, all of which serves to deny their individual voices and agency. The images have been taken out of their original contexts;
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