Dark Water
2018
Since the 1990s, millions have embarked on journeys across the Mediterranean Sea with the hope of reaching safe havens in Europe. Dark Waters, inspired by personal stories of refugees who have lost loved ones at sea, presents a story that goes far beyond documentation of the current crisis and into the realms of the metaphorical representation of the sea and of water. It is the nature of water to oppose the rigidity of borders, with open horizons brimming with opportunity. Dark Waters is ultimately a reflection of the power of human hope, whether it materializes or was in vain.
Dark Waters engages in a journey along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea following the huge number of refugees attempting to emigrate from North Africa to Europe. Tchetchik’s works express a range of fragments and memories, a wordless psychological journey in which the sea becomes a mirror reflecting the crisis. The story of the refugees that Tchetchik has chosen to present is an essentially Romantic narrative. Romanticism tends to address painful, violent, passionate subjects full of struggle and mystery. The human being facing a destructive Nature in a war of survival against all odds is engaged in a limitless war with no holds barred. Tchetchik’s works raise issues of loss and disappearance as well as of the essence of hope, desire, and faith.
