Majid Adin is an Iranian animator and artist who now resides in the UK. Adin’s route to the UK was not an easy one. After fleeing Iran due to persecution for subversive writings and illustrations, he came to the UK through the refugee camp in Calais known as the “Jungle.” It was there that Adin came into contact with Good Change Theatre, an organisation that set up its first theatre in the Jungle to provide for and support the artistic pursuits of those living in the camp. It was this group that prompted Adin to enter a competition to reinterpret the music videos for some of Elton John’s most famous songs, which he went on to win with his reimagining of Rocket Man as the story of a refugee’s migration and the experience of seeking asylum in a wildly unfamiliar place. After this video went viral and brought Adin acclaim, he received commissions from other organisations for works including his short animation The Journey for Help Refugees and the Choose Love campaign which raises awareness of unaccompanied children who have been separated from their families. On his Instagram (@majid_adin_ma), Adin shares his watercolour and mixed media work where he tends to situate his figures in textural, nonspecific settings.
Adin was drawn to animation because of its universal appeal and inclusion, he says, in comparison to some aspects of the fine art world. In Rocket Man and The Journey, the medium serves to bridge cross-cultural and language barriers through using expression and landscape to construct the story. Although the songs used are in English, which helps to draw the attention of a western audience, the imagery would be equally as powerful alone as it is this which guides the narrative, which render the lyrics secondary. By responding to culturally popular western songs and applying them to stories of refugees with an animation style that is universally accessible, Adin is encouraging empathy without the limitations of specific cultural reference or nationality, a message which is central to the Choose Love campaign.
Rocket Man takes the space imagery from the lyrics and translates their meaning into the experience of a refugee moving from a camp to unfamiliar London, which Adin has experienced first-hand. Although London is recognisable from landmarks like the Gherkin, London Eye and Westminster, the buildings are elongated and the city looks almost futuristic, which forces even a viewer who is familiar with the city to imagine how alien it would feel as a newly-arrived refugee. This is intensified by the figure’s isolation throughout the video, especially when set in vast landscapes of outer space. Our spaceman’s loneliness is especially prominent when we see him, still in his spacesuit to remind us of the extraordinary journey he has been on, in a mundane journey on the tube alone, surrounded by oblivious shadowy figures. Adin uses watercolour, which gives the effect of places washing away as the scenes change, leaving the figures who are rendered in black and white as a constant in the changing setting. The landscape seems to almost melt away as we change location, adding to the idea of the instability of place and how quickly environments can change despite how stable they may seem. Beyond simple coherence with the lyrics, Adin’s use of a rocket shows the magnitude of the journey this individual is taking. He refuses to romanticise or sterilise the realities of migrating as a refugee. Adin firstly shows the character stowed away beneath a lorry, dangerously close to the road with fast-moving traffic following close behind. He shows a group of figures attempting to travel in a small boat on rough seas which capsizes, a very real danger for those fleeing in frequently overloaded boats. Adin uses space imagery to emphasise the pain of separation of his character who stands on Mars looking down to Earth as the song ends with the lyrics “and I think it’s gonna be a long long time”.
More recently, Adin was commissioned by Help Refugees to animate a video in response to Jack Savoretti’s “Catapult,” reinterpreting the lyrics as the story of a family who is separated whilst fleeing to a refugee camp. It similarly explores ideas of displacement through quickly transitioning settings, but from the perspective of a child left unaccompanied. The rendering of the child’s face with exaggerated eyes resembles a cartoon character, which makes the hardships depicted all the more jarring. Again, Adin uses the night sky to close the film, emphasising the extent of the distance travelled. Whether as a a result of the song to which he is responding or the brief he was given, this film plays less with metaphor and is more about conveying the facts of the situation for many children.
It is easy to see the relationship between Adin’s painting and his animation in the way he situates his figures within a backdrop. He uses texture and colour to place them in seemingly transient settings. Adin’s art and animation expose the experience of many refugees to a sometimes unaware and at worst hostile European audience, drawing upon his own experiences. In a wider sense, his work explores the relationship between the figure and place to create narratives through this interaction.
Adin’s animations Rocket Man and The Journey can be found on YouTube, while he posts information on upcoming exhibitions to his Instagram.
