{"id":1813,"date":"2026-10-02T22:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/?p=1813"},"modified":"2026-10-02T22:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:23:13","slug":"carrie-mae-weems-explores-the-human-cost-and-resilience-of-migration-in-new-va-east-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/?p=1813","title":{"rendered":"Carrie Mae Weems Explores the Human Cost and Resilience of Migration in New V&A East Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the heart of the newly opened V&A East Museum, a profound new work by the celebrated artist Carrie Mae Weems offers a meditative and searing look at the global phenomenon of migration. Titled The Long Goodbye<\/em> (2026), the film is the result of a rigorous three-year development process commissioned specifically for the museum\u2019s debut. Rather than approaching the subject of migration through the detached lens of policy, statistics, or geopolitical crisis, Weems centers her focus on the often-obscured love stories that pulse beneath the surface of these harrowing journeys. In doing so, she reclaims the humanity of individuals whose courage and labor have fundamentally shaped the modern world, yet whose personal narratives are frequently omitted from the annals of history.<\/p>\n

For Weems, love serves as both the subject and the methodology of her artistic inquiry. She challenges viewers to recognize the profound emotional labor inherent in migration: the love that travelers carry with them across borders, the love that is irrevocably left behind, and the persistent ways these experiences continue to inform the present, even when they remain unacknowledged by mainstream society.<\/p>\n

Migration, Memory, and the East London Landscape<\/h3>\n

Migration has long been a central pillar of Weems\u2019s artistic practice, making her commission for V&A East particularly resonant. East London, the site of the new museum, is an area whose entire historical identity and contemporary vibrancy have been defined by waves of migration. The mission of V&A East\u2014to celebrate and create a welcoming space for the diverse communities that call this part of the city home\u2014aligns perfectly with the themes of Weems\u2019s work. <\/p>\n

While Weems has long been an influential figure for generations of artists in the UK, The Long Goodbye<\/em> marks the first time she has directed her lens specifically toward Britain and its complex diasporic communities. Throughout the three years spent developing this commission, Weems remained acutely responsive to the shifting political climate. Her initial concepts evolved in direct dialogue with the heated debates and public protests regarding migration that have dominated the political landscape in both the United Kingdom and the United States. <\/p>\n

True to her decades-long commitment to dismantling entrenched hierarchies of power, Weems uses this film to interrogate how images and archives are curated to define historical narratives. The film serves as a counter-narrative to the standard accounts of post-war Britain, offering a vision that acknowledges the buried truths regarding why generations migrated to the UK. In an era where history is increasingly being warped or rewritten to serve the agendas of those in power, The Long Goodbye<\/em> acts as a vital, pertinent intervention.<\/p>\n

The Voices of the Displaced<\/h3>\n

Within the film, the haunting narration evokes the visceral fear of the unknown. A poignant refrain echoes through the piece: \u201cI\u2019m trembling. I\u2019m trembling\u2026 tell me what\u2019s on the other side\u2026 I remember when Britain was smashed and burned and when we became a part of the Commonwealth and when the Queen called saying that she needed us\u2026 I remember the great extraction of natural resources and wealth needed at the service of empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

These words, spoken and sung with a rhythmic intensity, place the viewer directly into the psyche of the migrant, standing at the edge of the ocean and staring toward an uncertain future. The narrative voice speaks on behalf of those who immigrated voluntarily, while simultaneously acknowledging the terror of the millions who were forcibly transported in chains. By capturing the anguish of these unnamed individuals, Weems forces the viewer to confront the visceral pain that has shaped our present, despite the fact that such humanity is rarely preserved in the official historical record.<\/p>\n

The Archive as an Act of Intervention<\/h3>\n

Weems\u2019s use of self-portraiture is an essential, recurring strategy throughout the film, serving as a form of artistic intervention. By inserting herself into the historical frame, she draws sharp attention to the figures who have been silenced or forgotten. The archive, in Weems\u2019s hands, ceases to be a static repository of objective facts. Instead, it becomes a space that must be actively questioned, along with the biases and assumptions that spectators bring to it.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/figure>\n

The film poses fundamental questions about the act of looking. How does a photograph serve as evidence of existence while failing to reveal the internal life of the subject? Weems highlights this "gap"\u2014the fissure between the captured image and the lived experience\u2014and asks the audience how we might begin to fill that void with empathy and imagination. <\/p>\n

This collaborative approach to history extended to the creation of the work itself. During a series of workshops with the 2025 cohort of the V&A East Youth Collective, Weems engaged in a dialogue about how she frames and utilizes her own archive. In response, the young participants shared stories from their own family histories, answering questions posed by Weems about what they would want the world to know about their city, their communities, and their origins. This process ensured that the film is not merely a lecture on history, but a living conversation between generations.<\/p>\n

Water as a Vessel of History<\/h3>\n

In The Long Goodbye<\/em>, water is elevated to a central character. It functions as the literal route of migration, a connector between disparate geographies, and a vessel of memory. The film features numerous shots of the ocean, focusing on the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves. These visuals evoke the vastness of the sea while simultaneously suggesting the weight of the stories and lives trapped within its depths.<\/p>\n

The imagery invokes the untold numbers of Black bodies lost during the Middle Passage, suggesting their enduring power to "rise again" and haunt the present, which was built on their labor and suffering. Weems\u2019s approach resonates with "tidalectics," a concept developed by the Barbadian poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite. This framework rejects the idea of history as a linear, teleological progression, proposing instead that history, culture, and identity are understood through the ebb and flow of the tides\u2014a constant cycle of departure, return, and transformation. Under this lens, the ocean becomes a medium through which ancestral knowledge remains perpetually present, informing our current reality.<\/p>\n

The Inevitability of Change<\/h3>\n

The final movement of the film shifts toward a tone of joy and possibility. Framed by Weems\u2019s own laughter and the image of a couple dancing, the conclusion suggests that change is not only inevitable but something to be embraced. As Weems noted in a later interview, \u201cThe empire has to deal with the reality of what it has created.\u201d She emphasizes that the movements of people, set in motion by the mechanics of empire, will continue to transform major global centers like London and New York.<\/p>\n

For Weems, the history of migration is inseparable from the creative energy that underpins the world\u2019s most significant cultural hubs. Her work insists that we surrender to these "waves of history," trusting in the process of transformation. In a political climate where progress often feels elusive or actively obstructed, The Long Goodbye<\/em> offers a sense of confidence: change is already happening, and it is a force that cannot be undone.<\/p>\n

A Meditation on Love<\/h3>\n

The Long Goodbye<\/em> is currently on view at the V&A East Museum, presented alongside two other films from Weems\u2019s archive: Before the Loss of You<\/em> (2005) and Okwui<\/em> (2019). These companion pieces further illuminate Weems\u2019s interest in the transformative power of love. Before the Loss of You<\/em> honors the relationship between Winnie and Nelson Mandela, exploring the personal cost of resistance and the pain of separation during the fight against apartheid. Okwui<\/em>, meanwhile, is a tribute to the late Nigerian curator and poet Okwui Enwezor, acknowledging his instrumental role in shifting the global art world toward a more inclusive, post-colonial perspective.<\/p>\n

Seen together, these works reveal that love is the catalyst for much of Weems\u2019s expansive oeuvre. Her multimedia practice does more than just document; it asks us to recognize the humanity in strangers across time and space. By recovering the stories of those marginalized by dominant narratives, Weems changes our relationship to the societies we inhabit today. Ultimately, she challenges us to look beyond the inherited stories of the past and to honor the lives, losses, and loves that continue to construct our world. In the view of the artist, making the unseen visible is, in itself, an act of profound love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the heart of the newly opened V&A East Museum, a profound new work by the celebrated artist Carrie Mae Weems offers a meditative and searing look at the global phenomenon of migration. Titled The Long Goodbye (2026), the film is the result of a rigorous three-year development process commissioned specifically for the museum\u2019s debut. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[274,1166,1170,2526,275,806,1168,126,1195,1075,276,2787,1167],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-art-and-culture","tag-asian-art","tag-carrie","tag-commission","tag-cost","tag-culture","tag-east","tag-explores","tag-heritage","tag-human","tag-migration","tag-philosophy","tag-resilience","tag-weems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orientalplaces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}