Loading tells the story of Farrukh Sair, his wife Saba Sair and their two children. Farrukh Sair was born in Pakistan, but moved to the UK on a study visa in 2003. In 2014 he applied for indefinite leave to remain, but his application got rejected. He applied again in 2015, 2016 and 2019, but to no avail.
For Farrukh and Saba there was no moving on with life until their application was accepted. The next day could always be their last day in the UK. They lead a life stuck in the present. Their ability to plan their own future, their life became dependent on the Home Office´s decision. It took from them the power and agency over their own life and it restricted their mobility. Mobility as access to space, but also access to time. Farrukh and Saba do not have same access to time than their white British neighbours. They cannot control the temporality of their own life. They are removed from everyday rhythms of life and from the possibility of a future. They are not only deprived from material access to infrastructure, but also from the simple act of dreaming and imagining a future.
This piece tells Farrukh and Saba Sair´s story, but it is also an attempt at making the frustration, the anger and the arbitrariness of waiting tangible to you, the viewer. The bar is continuously loading, yet it is never complete. The viewer will never know what happens once the bar is completely loaded. One is stuck waiting without moving forward.
The computer-like aesthetics emphasise how the Home Office in particular, but border regimes in general do not see people like Farrukh and Saba Sair as humans. They are not more than an error message in the system.
