Running Stuck in Time

Running Stuck in Time

Migration is a difficult experience to translate through text alone. The frustrations take a few sentences to write down, and a few breaths of being read, but there is a very physical reality of time spent, time lost, time running out. A very visceral experience of truly never being certain until you get your papers. I initially wanted to translate this experience into a game because I wanted to share my dinner conversations with you. The hours spent trying to decide the best move forward, brainstorming how, when, and in which ways we should apply, how to keep on holding onto a country, and at times, how much this grip we have over our lives here is making it impossible to move within our own lives. I wanted to show the impossibility of making substantial money as an asylum seeker waiting for a decision because even when you have the right to work the government takes away a huge chunk out of your pay. I wanted to demonstrate how the legality of “legal means of coming” are arbitrary at best, and directly tied to the applicants' deservedness.

The Process

As this is not just my journey, the game was formed through co-creation sessions with friends, community, migrants... All of the levels within the game are a different persons experience, they have all happened exactly as they are. This game is not just a simulation but an archive of how one applies for an artist visa in the Netherlands.