Bouchra Khalili’s ‘The Mapping Journey Project’ is a series of eight videos focusing on individuals forced to flee their home countries for economic or political reasons. Each video offers a single, uninterrupted shot, emphasising the obstacles travellers face as they attempt to avoid capture by surveillance systems and border control. As the artist describes it, ‘The work is not about migration, but rather about the consequences of restrictive conceptions of nation states and colonial history.’

Cartography is the main mode of storytelling, as the hands of the otherwise unseen storytellers plot their routes on a map. Mapping Journey #7 follows a man’s trek from Beni Mellal, Morocco, to Utrecht, the Netherlands, via Alicante and Barcelona in Spain.  Mapping Journey #8 traces a passage from Al Fashir, Sudan, to Istanbul, Turkey, routed through Tripoli, Libya, and Athens, Greece.