A Profound Difference: Departure Lounge

Abstract

The UK referendum on the decision to leave the EU was, and is, a very contentious event. It revealed some very significant divisions in the population. Not least was the division between age. Where the majority of young people voted to remain, an older generation largely voted to leave.

Consequently, the outcome of the referendum was very much influenced by people for whom a future beyond the borders of the UK was irrelevant.

The work uses continental domestic film media from the 1950s, the period during which the foundations for a supranational state of European countries was first being formed.

The images of young people, made using continental domestic cine equipment from the 1950s, are projected onto and inside the wooden panels of polling booths.

Two 8mm cine cameras, one facing and one to the side of the subject, were used to film young people from the UK, speaking of their responses to the referendum. Being a silent medium, their voices cannot be heard.