THE FILM
ONE DOCUMENT.
FIFTY SECONDS.
Sent, filed, kept, stopped, ruined. The same five frames that open the walk, in the order the argument runs. Narrated by Maya, Julian and Rowan, the three voices who read the whole board.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
Five documents, in the order the argument runs.
- Sent. An envelope, sealed. On 12 August 1949 four treaties were signed in Geneva and sent out into the world. Convention I, Article 1 →
- Filed. Stamped dockets. Nearly every state on earth signed. Signing is paperwork. Convention IV, Article 49 →
- Kept. A ward register, filled in by hand. What the articles protect is people, one at a time. Convention I, Article 19 →
- Stopped. A grid of blank forms. The paperwork survives; nobody filled it in. Convention III, Article 111 →
- Ruined. One stain, soaked through. This is the article now, held against the conduct. Convention IV, Article 33 →
Every frame is a photograph of a document and nothing else. There is no footage of the harm in this film, and there is none on the site either: an image of what happened would do the reader's comparing for them, which is the one thing this project refuses to do.