“CARGO” by Laura Waddington
Title:
- CARGO
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Artist Statement:
A woman tells the story of a journey she made on a cargo boat to the Middle East. A video commissioned by the International film festival Rotterdam for the project “On the Waterfront” (ARTE prize for Best European Short Film, 48th Oberhausen Short Film Festival / First Prize, Video-ex 2002, Festival of Experimental Film and Video, Zurich.)
Additional statement about the work
“CARGO” is the story of a journey, I made on a container ship with a group of Rumanian and Phillipino sailors, who were delivering cargo to the Middle East. I stayed on the ship six weeks. The sailors weren’t allowed to leave the boat and they spent their days waiting, singing karaoke and telling me stories in a small TV room. In Syria, the ports were military zones. I hid at a porthole and secretly filmed the life below: a man stealing wood, a soldier fishing off the edge of an abandoned submarine. Later, I took the most abstract images and made a narrative, that falls between reality and fiction. It was my way of showing the limbo these men were living in. (Laura Waddington 2001)
