Work to Death: Edwin Mingard's 'Break' is a Lifeline for Millennials' Immigration De

As part of a wider study of migration at the Ben Uri Gallery, Edwin Mingard's latest short, Break, depicts an immigrant on the point of physical collapse as he struggles to make a living in London.

The film is inspired both by interviews Mingard arranged with immigrants living in the capital and a trip that he took late last autumn, re-enacting the popular migrant route overland from Turkey to northern Europe; the film's opening montage is made up of images taken during this journey. In conversation with the director I gathered that he was keen to represent immigrants on their own terms:

'Lots of portrayals of migrants are about people in bare rooms looking sad or they're represented negatively. I wanted to show someone in a shit situation who tells jokes and cares about other people and tries to make art work as well...I hope it comes across that Yousef would be a pretty cool guy, if you met him on the street. He'd be interesting and fun to be around. '

The film's protagonist, Yousef, originally from Egypt, is separated from his partner and daughter by state regulation. He works 65 hours a week in a restaurant kitchen on minimum wage in an attempt to meet the government's £22,400 per annum restriction on dependents being brought to the U.K. from outside the E.U. Yousef's doctor worries about his high blood pressure and mental wellbeing, prescribing rest along with some form of creative outlet to relieve the stress; neither recommendation seems feasible.

Meanwhile, his partner tells him that she 'can't go on' maintaining a family via social media. Matters soon come to a head. In a bid to keep his family together, Yousef had arranged to speak with his daughter at home but after finishing work late he is forced to hurriedly call her just outside the door of his restaurant.

In a reflection of the advancement of communication (and the bizarre things that children force adults to do), Yousef proceeds to spend the night travelling across London on one bus after another chosen at will by his daughter, who watches the journey thousands of miles away through the lens of his camera's smartphone. He wakes up the next morning, on a bus the wrong side of London, late for yet another shift.

Break adds to Mingard's growing body of work that considers developments in technology in respect of their effect on social interaction and self-perception. Yousef's contact with his family in Egypt is mediated entirely through his phone, which though a lifeline for the relationship also creates a frustrating illusion of closeness.

Back at work Yousef suffers a minor heart attack; this leads to a spell in hospital; the doctor's warning is now stark: 'if you stay in the environment you're in, it'll kill you.' 'I don't have a choice,' Yousef replies, but he is shaken into his first art project: an interview with his co-worker Emina, another immigrant from Croatia.

Mingard is conscious of the polarisation in the current debate surrounding migration and hopes the film will inspire understanding:

'I heard someone talking on the radio about how they were voting U.K.I.P after having sat on a bus and not been able to hear anyone speaking English and I was thinking about how that person might have felt if he could have understood what was being said by the foreigners. Maybe if they could have understood what was being said they might not have minded them being here.'

Such understanding he feels will be helped by viewing today's migrants in terms of the historical thread that ties them to previous generations of immigrants. The short will be shown alongside artwork by migrants from the first half of the twentieth century whose paintings are referenced in the film's frame composition and costume choice.

"I spent a long time in the Ben Uri collection which is full of works by migrants, most were fleeing major wars and civil strife. Previous generations have a lot to tell us: imagine saving up for oil paints when it's hard enough to put food on the table. The question is in what ways will current migrants tell their stories? Maybe one day we'll stand in the Tate and see a work made by someone who crossed the Mediterranean in a dinghy with nothing except the clothes they were wearing. I wouldn't be surprised."

With the eye of an artist, and the help of a multi-national crew, Mingard has made an engaging short which exposes the reality that life is far from easy for many immigrants in the austerity hit U.K..

Mingard's installation is part of the exhibition Unexpected: Continuing Narratives of Identity and Migration at the Ben Uri Gallery, which runs from the 17th of February to the 24th of April 2016 in North London. http://benuri.org.uk/exhibitions/

by Jaz Allen-Sutton