Introduction
The Impossible Journey captures the moment when I take two contemporary artists from Wales (which I have called my home for many years), Melanie Hobday and Matt Clark, to Africa (the place of my birth), to see it through their eyes, to inspire them and encourage them to produce outstanding and challenging contemporary artworks which will later be exhibited across Wales in conjunction with documentary inspired still images that my colleague and I will have taken throughout the journey.
Through this documentary I aim to induce questions and inspire by shedding light on the incredible journeys, sacrifices and often heartbreaking decisions that many of its citizens have had to make before coming to Wales and by, association, Welsh citizens have faced over the generations when leaving their homeland in order to start life anew.
By taking Melanie Hobday and Matt Clark, accomplished artists who live and work in Wales, to a foreign land with a different climate, culture and language I aim to induce questions and inspire them to push the boundaries of their work and preconceptions.
In turn the resulting film will help the audience to take a second look at their own identities, surroundings and sense of place.
I will take Melanie and Matt for a 3 day walk, on this 'Impossible Journey' through the harsh reality of the African landscape and weather (from Djibouti to Ethiopia and then to Eritrea), a journey which once I travelled as a little boy to escape from the civil war and famine that was devastating Ethiopia in the mid 1980s. This journey also serves as a way to show a more introspective side to myself and the two artists as we they explain our unique hopes, expectations and reasons for wanting to take this journey.
Finally the journey takes us to the seaport city where I was imprisoned, without charge, for six months before I had even reached my teens.
As we start the Impossible Journey I will guide and explain to Melanie and Matt as to the way I survived when I was homeless and living on the streets of Djibouti, alone and at such a young age, in a different country with a different culture and with a different language from Ethiopia (the place of my birth) and how I came to the decision to stowaway on a ship to leave Djibouti once and for all only to find myself in yet another country with a different culture and with a different language — the UK.
This film will highlight the different perspectives of life in the heart of Africa through the contrast of the two artists and the local people, particularly from an educational standpoint, as they travel through Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. My colleagues and I will capture every little movement and experience through film (and photographs), while the two artists experience firsthand the extreme poverty and hardship that most of the people in that part of the world are subject to and how this influences their art.
The still images from the journey and the work of the artist will be exhibited at Butetown History & Art Centre, the Ethiopian Art Centre UK, the Drum and the Riverfront (all of which have been confirmed), and in other art galleries across Wales (which we are currently negotiating with), alongside the works of the two artists, supported by a short promotional video for the finished film. The finished film however will be exhibited via film festivals and cinemas throughout the UK, with the guidance and support of the Film Agency of Wales, the Film Council UK, the Independent Cinema office and BFI.
I was born in 1975 and lived through the Ethiopian civil wars and famine of the 1980s. In 1988 at the age of 13 I climbed up anchor chain and stowed away on a Greek ship, at the time I had no idea where the ship was going other than that it was away from Djibouti; little did I know it was bound for the UK.
When eventually I arrived in the UK, I was handed over to immigration officers and eventually ended up in the care of the social services; I was aged thirteen and didn't speak a word of English. A few years later, when I felt that I had a better understanding of the English language, I went to college to study performing arts. After that I went on to take a course in media communication where he discovered that I had an affinity with the moving image. This led me to take a degree in film and then to do an MA, in Newport, in the same subject. In the processes I lost my own language and family but found a new life and home here in Wales.
