Over the years, many refugee camps have been referenced on Google Maps, allowing residents to upload photos and comments from inside the camps. Using their smartphones, thousands of displaced people have left a trace of their existence on the platform, hoping to reach the outside world and that someone, somewhere, will notice them.
They have documented their lives in the camps, uploading photographs of family members, rainy days, comforting meals, pets and cattle, and sunsets.
They have posted comments as prayers, as political pamphlets, as cries for help, as testimonies from their time in the camps.
When the infamous camp of Moria, in Greece, was destroyed by a fire in September 2020, Google Maps marked the location as “permanently closed,” blurred the aerial images of the burnt-down camp, and removed the thousands of comments posted since 2015.
This digital exhibition attempts to archive fleeting moments, suspending them in time forever.
“I am a refugee and I want to get out of here.”
انا لاجئ واريد الخروج من هنا— Guan Salih, Samos, Greece.
A word about curation
I reviewed thousands of photographs and comments to curate a selection of testimonies reflecting the diversity of camp dwellers’ experiences. I have, to the extent possible, targeted content uploaded by refugees themselves, avoiding content from humanitarian workers and visitors that only accentuates a pathetic portrait of the refugee condition we know too well.
I Am Here sheds a light on the dignity and resilience of human life.
It sublimates the vernacular while focusing on the universal.
This work was produced in the Fall 2020, in the context of Professor Shannon Mattern’s “Anthropology + Design” course at The New School.
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