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Santa's Little Helper

(2008)

Pigment print

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In 2008 I was in a workers’ camp in the desert outside Dubai filming material for the video installation Rendez-vous. The men living there were among the thousands of migrant workers constructing what would become the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

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I noticed a red T-shirt hanging from a rusty air conditioning unit in a narrow alleyway outside one of the rooms. Across the front, in white print, it read: “Santa’s Little Helper.”

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The irony is quiet but unavoidable — a migrant worker in a desert camp helping to build someone else’s miracle.​

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