The Coal Men

The consequences of a migratory process or displacement for people’s life is the central theme of the performance staged by Serge Attukwei Clottey as part of the Grec festival programme. The Ghanaian artist asks himself how we can reconstruct family experiences when we do not live in our home because we have had to leave, how each individual deals with prejudice, cultural anxiety and the feeling of belonging when they live in a foreign country. What physical and mental barriers a person must overcome in order to get used to living amidst unfamiliar elements and what power relations arise from this situation are some of the question Clottey asks himself as he places his own body in a state of anxiety, the usual state of a subject affected by an identity crisis who seeks elements to allow him to regain the feeling of home, and is forced to struggle against anti-migrant prejudice.