The Crossing aims to get, mainly young people and young adults in the Nordic countries to stop and reflect on their own and others’ vulnerability and increase the understanding of integration and diversity and stimulate community involvement.
The Crossing is a performative project that uniquely combines Virtual Reality (VR), film and performing arts to make visible the conditions around immigration – te goal is to increase knowledge and understanding for the situation and premises of migrants/refugees.
The aim of The Crossing is to make the audiences understand what pushes an individual to leave their home and family, to spend their savings and risk their lives at sea. Risking to face the unforeseen and suffer isolation, exploitation and humiliation, embarking on a journey that has no sure duration, all for a dream that often turns into tragedy.
The background of the installation is the huge refugee crisis we exeperienced during 2015, a crisis that still continues with background as the war in Syria, war in Jemen, famine and conflicts in eastern Africa (Eritrea, Somalia) and the conflict in South Sudan, as well as rhe situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today we face new conflicts and reasons to flee for your life, not only in international conflicts such as the Rohingyans in Myanmar, in Nigeria or in Venezeuale but even in our own european backyard: the Russian invation of Ukraine.
According to the UNHCR, 65.3 million human beings were fleeing in 2015. Infortunately, the number has not decreased since then. According to resent information (UNHCR) 89.3 million people were worldwide were forcibly displaced, as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.