Revolving around human rights urgencies in times of crisis, the video programme Hiding Our Faces Like a Dancing Wind brings together three filmic works: Forensic Architecture’s Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea (2020), Ole-Kristian Heyer, Patrick Lohse, and Marian Mayland’s Dunkelfeld (2020) and Yazan Khalili’s Hiding Our Faces Like a Dancing Wind (2016), which grants the programme its title.

Humankind has been hiding their faces for centuries. Some are concerned with violations of privacy and avoiding facial recognition technology, some wear a scarf over their face as part of their belief system, and others seek to shield themselves from a discriminatory gaze, possibly fearing a racist attack. Today, all around the world, we are all hiding our faces for a good cause; wearing masks to prevent the spread of a virus and save lives. In such times of solidarity and crisis, universal human values are being continuously tested.

The summer of 2015 was also known as ”the long summer of migration”. With their collaborative video piece, Forensic Architecture unravels the facts behind a sinking migrant boat and its complicated rescue operation just off the European coast in 2015. It includes video material from artist and survivor Amel Alzakout, recorded as the boat was sinking as well as video taken by artist Richard Mosse. Combined with material from activists, members of the press, the Greek coastguard, satellite images and weather data, they form an effort to determine, through analysis, what really happened and who might be responsible. All of this data functions as evidence that calls for social justice. Investigating the shipwreck carefully, the work informs us of the ugly truths of European border politics during a humanitarian crisis.