Blind Crossing

Mariam Ghani, Blind Crossing still
still from Blind Crossing (2001, RT 3:00, stereo sound)

Blind Crossing uses text from Middle Passages, a book by the Caribbean poet and theorist Kamau Braithwaite, to defamiliarize imagery of the harbor by Chelsea Piers and summon the specter of forced migration in contemporary New York. Originally part of a two-channel installation with the video Crossing Blind, which uses the actions of a group of blindfolded performers to draw the same parallel with the lines and signals of pedestrian traffic systems.