Tina in Sexbierum

The decision to move to Holland doesn't sound like a wise idea. Why move to a country that could be flooded at any moment? For the last 25 years, the political climate has shifted. The public debate on migration has become harsher, more heated, and polarized. What would have been considered right-wing xenophobia back then, is now considered mainstream. Populists simplify complex realities into good and evil, victims and perpetrators: ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Their rhetoric often consists of dehumanizing words and metaphors. One of these is ‘water’. In reality, water is not an immediate threat to the average Dutch person; but it is a huge threat to the thousands trying to reach the Netherlands. People trying to survive the Mediterranean Sea in rubber boats. Trying to survive winter on the Aegean coast in primitive tents. To them, water really is deadly.

Why do we pick up some refugees in our own cars, while allowing others to drown in the seas around Europe? In the short documentary Kitten or Refugee? visual artist Tina Farifteh dissects the mechanisms behind empathy and the dangers of empathy erosion, and submits the viewer to an experiment: who gets our empathy in life-or-death situations?