Ran Faigenboim

The work deals with the anxiety in and around immigration from the position of the immigrant. Relating to the global shift of population as so-called 3^rd and 2^nd worlders attempt to flock to the first world. 

The stress of changing laws coupled with the inability to determine ones destiny resolves into a feeling of being utterly helpless vis-à-vis Brexit, EU policy, US policy, and so on. 

Using the first world's banal language of authority as articulated through High-Visibility aesthetic I create talismans and amulets meant to protect migrants on their way, suspend harmful laws and ensure successful integration into the first world. I use mine and their own words from immigration help forums.

Civil authority asks us to trust it, it tells us that our interest is its interest but the highly anxious, colourful and disruptive visual language it uses tells a different story and perhaps a more meaningful one. The nature of power relations between civil authority and the citizen.

The work uses cutup and different deconstruction protocols to reveal hidden meaning.

Through the process of cutup we attempt to break image-word connections to invoke the random deciding agent the dissolving of authority and decision making.

By using the language of the oppressor we are taking back the symbolic power.

The title of the piece refers to the central talisman shown the from of which was originally meant to deter blue eyed, fair haired and clean shaven 'devils', the colonised fearing the coloniser.