CALLSHOP

You can find Callshops in every city, but most of us barely notice them. Every day though these countless telephone centres offer immigrants a vital service by providing them with a cheap way of phoning home. For a short while the émigrés are able to forget their estrangement by hearing a familiar voice, reports from relatives, stories from far away. They gain an illusion of closeness that slowly fades away after they put down the receiver. With the formal precision of his camera Grigorian achieves a rare emotional intensity. We meet a love struck Arab, a jealous Romanian, a devoted woman from Cameroon. The expressions and gestures of the people on the end of the line illustrate over and over again the tragedy of homelessness.

"For a long time I have been searching for an image – for the image of a person without a home. For me it is the image of someone who has their ear pressed against a telephone receiver, just to make a connection with their homeland." Eldar Grigorian