Beheld

An intimate and resonant audio-visual installation by Graeme Miller, Beheld connects its audience with the disturbing phenomenon of people who fell from the sky.

Glass vessels are charged with 180º images taken at locations where the bodies of stowaways have fallen from aircraft. On lifting these bowls they resonate with the sound of their location.

Since 2006 Graeme has visited places around the world where migrants have fallen from aircraft – stowaways who have hidden in the wheel bays of commercial airlines. As the planes approach airports and lower their wheels, so their bodies fall to the ground, giving a particular piece of ground with significance.

A 14 year-old boy falls into a field in the Black Forest. A Pakistani man falls into a Homebase car park in Richmond. An unknown Russian falls into a suburban garden near Paris. As the bodies fall by chance and enter another’s particular space, those below can choose to hold or to let fall this passing life. Geographies, personal and political, collide or connect; the migrant meets the settled, the living meet the dead.

Since Beheld’s first presentation, Graeme Miller has continued to visit, photograph and record places around the world where migrants have fallen from aircraft, in order to continue and extend the Beheld project beyond the original ten locations. This reflects the continuing problem of migrant deaths on and approaching the borders of European and North American countries, which has not slowed since Beheld was first created.

Beheld is an Artsadmin project and was originally created at Dilston Grove, London. It was jointly presented with Cafe Gallery Projects London with financial support from Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation.