From a selection of photographs taken by Bruno Serralongue for his series “Calais” (2006-), as well as his own research in the field of photofiction, Hilde Van Gelder approaches the border landscape of the North Coast. french. This highly contested maritime area lends itself to a microcosmic analysis of all of our contemporary global challenges: migration, climate change, human rights, and neoliberal surveillance technology. In their terrible convergence, they run the risk of crushing us like a villainous and ecocidal wave. But it is also conceivable that a fertile earth wave (bottom sea) will end up growing, which will generate a real renaissance in its path. A critical reflection on the indifference of a divided European Union to the large number of people on the move who are standing or drowning near the English Channel. A reflection that allows us to imagine a world in which every living thing caresses the fundamental right to be reborn.

(Intervention in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish)

Hilde Van Gelder is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) and Director of the Lieven Gevaert Research Center for Photography, Art and Visual Culture (LGC). Her research focuses on how photography can be an operative force in the visual arts for both relegitimizing and imagining fundamental rights. His latest book, Ground Sea. Photography and the Right to Be Reborn (Leuven University Press, 2021), unfolds a vivid account of repeated trips to Calais and Dover between 2017 and 2020.