Art Funded by you

Despair (Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography)

Sukran Moral, 2006

© Sukran Moral / Photo: The Trustees of the British Museum

This photograph forms part of the Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography. This is an Art Fund initiative for the British Museum and V&A to acquire a collection of 20th century and contemporary photography and digital images by artists from the Middle East (whether living in their countries of origin or outside). The Art Fund has given the two museums grants over £150,000 for the collection and additional support for the tour of the collection. Moral explained this piece as follow, 'Immigration is one of the significant problems of our century. They are the new slaves of today. We usually watch them on the media as frustrating groups of people, without identities, stuck in a boat. They are the contemporary marginals. In my work I tried to give them an identity, an expression and finally a soul. In an unsafe boat in the ocean, knowing that at any moment they could go to the bottom we can see their courage by looking in their eyes. If the boat sinks, digital nightingales can fly away but they do not have wings. The nightingale represents love, hope, separation in Turkish literature. I wanted to give wings as a gift to the hopeless ones.'

More information

Title of artwork, date

Despair (Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography), 2006

Date supported

2011

Dimensions

100 x 150 cm

Content note: This object record is part of our archive and has not been updated since it was first published. It may contain inaccurate information or outdated language. Please get in touch if you think this record should be amended.

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