The project sees audiences being placed in the middle of an English channel crossing journey using virtual reality and sound.
‘Just An Other Crossing’ is a 6 month R&D sound and virtual reality project led by Local Foreigner, in collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Manuel Vason. The Artist crossed the English Channel on a small boat and captured the journey in 360 film. Then devised an immersive/live installation where audiences experience the journey in a Virtual Reality headset whilst listening to the sound of their own heartbeat amplified live with a doppler onto surround speakers.
The project looks at migration and displacement through a visceral lens, confronting the edge between life and death. What is it like to be faced with our own mortality when seeking sanctuary? We all need safe ground & our hearts all beat to a similar rhythm. Can we build a bridge between us when faced with a shared reality?
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Andre Verissimo AKA Local Foreigner is an interdisciplinary visual & performance artist living in Folkestone. His work aims to raise questions on the human condition and nurture less oppressive and more connected relationships: with ourselves, others and the rest of the world.
In 2015, Andre created his alter ego Local Foreigner as a response to the tense and confused socio-political climate surrounding ideas of locality and foreignness. His interests lie in the underlying current of this tension and confusion, that point to a society in a psychological and existential crisis, and how we might find new ways of relating.
