Provisional Figures is the name used in statistical studies to classify all migrants whose situation and status is undefined or provisional and who are currently working in the United Kingdom.
Provisional Figures crowns a two-year research process with the Portuguese community living in Great Yarmouth (United Kingdom), and invites audiences to reflect on identity and migration issues in an urban context severely hit by the economic crisis and consequent social unrest.
Although relatively unknown in Portugal, the darkest years of the economic crisis (2009-2014) were the height of this migration boom, which saw the large food processing plants (turkeys and chickens) in this Norfolk area as its ultimate destination, an area particularly hard hit by unemployment. Taking advantage of the decline of this coastal town, once a preferred holiday resort for the British, plants in the region took the accommodation available in hotels and semi-abandoned caravan sites as an opportunity for housing their new workers.
Distant in time and space from the great migration waves to France and Germany at the end of the Second World War, when approximately one million and a half Portuguese emigrated to escape hunger and unemployment, the Portuguese emigration to Great Yarmouth differs fundamentally from its precedent. A continually moving mass of the so-called “flexible work”, emerging as a response to the demands of new economic systems.
After working closely in Great Yarmouth with nine inhabitants of various nationalities over several months, Marco Martins brings us a show based on an original idea by Renzo Barsotti, disclosing the individual testimonials of those who personally experience this period of uncertainty, exploring the contradictions of human behaviour and the nature of the relationships between men and other animals.
