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The Influence of Migration Flows Through Art

"Towards the other" is a selection of works exhibited in Berlin that explore the constant construction of cultural identity through the impact of migration flows.

September 12th, 2016
F.B Rossich Darder, News from Berlin
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The Embassy of Spain in Germany, the Berlin University of the Arts and the Spanish Contemporary Art Network support this exhibition that will take place from the 26.08.2016-21.09.2016 in Berlin. A presentation of art about cultural integration, explained with the personal experience of the artist and his assimilation of identity throughout generations.

Everything started when the Spanish artist Miguel Azuaga found a document of his grandfather who emigrated to Switzerland at the end of Franco's dictatorship. Azuaga began to question himself about his own identity as well as his current situation as an emigrant in Berlin. "Towards the Other" stands immersed in the conflict of a constant to-and-fro that fuses past and present, where its function is to agglutinate different temporal spaces. The words journey or quest are substitutes for another and perhaps more explicit term, migration, whose presence in this project is obvious in the references to borders and the use of original passport files and images. History repeats itself, but so do stories, and here the two trade places to become a metaphor for the act of migration.

This artistic production is developed through instalations, video and photography in order to explain through comparison and art the research of identity. Two people from the same family, different times, different socio-political context but the same struggle. But what is migration if not the history of humanity. Displacement has been a common factor during our existence and it will keep going as it is. The movement for survival becomes the integration of cultures, the mixture of different societies and the challange to protect our self from our own conflicts.

The porpuse of this exposition is to explain the dynamic of human displacement and the migration flows as a common element of our history repeatedly. The assimilation of identity in this constant change is a struggle for all those who are in this situation. Then, why make it harder instead of bringing people together and making it easier. Cultural integration is nowadays a challange that must be faced positively as our world is becoming more and more globalised.

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News from Berlin