Binelde Hyrcan

Cambeck

Binelde Hyrcan’s video Cambeck is a playful study of four boys on a beach in Angola playing in a chauffeured car made of sand. Weaved through the seemingly naïve game are themes of poverty, migration, and inequality. Speaking of ‘the good life’ in the United States of America, the young boys discuss separated families as a result of migration, unemployment and education, poverty, the dream of leaving the slum for a building with walls made not of tin, and the luxury of the accessibility of transport. With the innocence of the conversation in the children’s game, the harsh realities of the developing world speak loudly. The artist’s decision to include the voice of the child speaks both to the importance of imagination in survival in the face of major social, economic and political disadvantages and to the generations of children faced with the hardship of poverty and life in a war zone. Imagination and dreaming is a method of endurance and future reparation of the trauma of social devastation. “Cambeck”, playful in its presentation and uncompromising in its delivery, is a significant insight into the realities lived by the youth in the ongoing Angolan Civil War context.