How to Make a Refugee

How to Make a Refugee shows two Kosovar refugee families in Macedonia being photographed and interviewed by a troupe of journalists. Using a shoulder-held camcorder, the artist follows the creation of the news, the transformation of a complex human drama into a flat image for immediate consumption, constructed at the news desk to meet the demands of spectacle and the display of suffering. The video is, therefore, the documentation of a real even, into which Collins inserts himself to gain an objective and impartial space of perception which reveals the mechanisms of manipulation conducted by the media and the construction of a new media product. The video recorder enables Collins to present an impassive take on the Kosovar families, who have lost everything, and the journalists. Combining proximity and distance, the artist takes up a position in between the two sides, or looks over their shoulders, occupying a position which is ambivalent as well as disquieting, but essential to stimulate the ethical reaction of viewers to the disinformation of numerous mass news services.