EDINBURGH.- Second Sight is part of a three-year series of projects entitled Image/Identity, focusing on the phenomenon of human migration. Conceived to reflect the growing trend of migration as both a differentiated and integrated part of everyday life, the project considers how contemporary society is shaped by the migration of people, what they are drawn to and what they leave behind.

The first project in the series is called Second Sight and includes an exhibition, film screenings, events and an online project which explore the experiences of migration. The stories portrayed have been drawn from the history of Italian people migrating to Scotland, through which we can consider the nuances and diversity of our international cultural heritage, consider how cultural and social assimilation happens and build up an understanding of the plurality of experiences and identities which make up Scotland’s people today.

In Stills’ main gallery, photographs by Frank Monaco (USA 1917-2007) and Robert Capa (Hungary, 1913-54) capture moments of upheaval, separation and refuge before the actualisation of an unknowable future, while works by Adrian Paci (Albania 1969) and Fausto Colavecchia (Italy 1959), address the leap of faith made by labourmotivated migrants.

Newly commissioned video works by Agapito Di Pilla (Italy 1972), Valentina Bonizzi (Italy 1973) and Maria Thereza Alves (Brazil 1960) explore how people sustain family and employment relationships in different countries for prolonged periods of time and offer insight into the complexity of our feelings towards the places we come from and return to.

Throughout May, June and July, Film Lounge will screen a varied programme of films by artist-directors including Agapito Di Pilla, Andrea Segre, John Huston, Harun Farocki and others. Film Lounge launches with a programme of films by Adrian Paci (Albania 1969, lives Milan) will include A real game (1999, 9'15"), Believe me I am an artist, (2000, 6'54"), Vajtojca (2001, 9'), Slowly (2004, 4'10") and Turn On (2004, 3'36") which explore the transition in the artists' practice as he left his homeland of Albania during its social evolution in the Nineties to settle as an immigrant in contemporary Italy.