A Change Is Gonna Come II
Lana Čmajčanin
(2018)
In this video, we see a foggy and drizzly seascape. The camera perspective creates an optical illusion: is the scene captured from a cruising boat or a fixed standpoint? In the background, we hear a monologue describing a journey in the Adriatic Sea, reflecting the different contrasting relationships between the sea as a site of leisure and beauty, and the sea as a mass grave.
Despite its fluidity and constant influx, the sea is a political landscape upon which divisions between national territories are drawn. The sea isn’t merely a touristic destination, it’s also a migration road for those who flee their countries escaping calamities while holding their hopes on their final destinations. Furthermore, the sea horizon is also a philosophical-poetic landscape and a zone of contemplation that puts into question geopolitical divisions and power mechanisms that determine the formation of national identities and territories.
Symbolically, in contradiction with an almost unchanged and static landscape, the title of the work implies transformation and provokes questions about the consequences of geopolitical and climatic changes. At the same time, it offers a possibility of imagining a new space, a signal for the politics of hope and its utopian inscriptions.