As part of the European project 'The Encyclopedia of Migrants' developed by the organisation L'age de la tortue in Rennes, France. Alan Perez Developed two projects. Universal Immigrant and Origins of communication Which were exhibited at the Garrison library in Gibraltar, 2017.

Universal Immigrant

The project is a film based on the life of a Gibraltarian student who left Gibraltar to study and then pursued a career as an international acclaimed DJ, lived in London and traveled the world. In London he was an immigrant and when he traveled abroad to work as a DJ he was also considered a foreign worker. When he returned to Gibraltar he would live at his parents ' house and had no rights to any government benefits, as he was not working in Gibraltar. He became a universal immigrant who would travel from country to country but did not legally belong anywhere. His identity was lost and he was the prototype of a modern day traveler who can only be defined as a citizen of the world. Due to modern technology, easy travel abroad and the hunger for success, the life of this character does no longer conform with the norms of society, but to a vision of a modern universal Immigrant. As a young Gibraltarian art student studying in Scotland I sometimes questioned who Gibraltarians are, or how other countries see us. We are not a country, but a colony, which in the modern world can sometimes be seen as an anomaly and probe the frequent question of misunderstanding about who we are or where we come from. Are we Gibraltarians? Or are we British? Do the British see us as British? And what does it mean to be Gibraltarian, when you have no rights, when you have spent many years abroad and then decide to come back to your ‘home’ and you have no rights to Medical care, social housing or benefits for unemployment? In my film I show the places this Gibraltarian DJ travels to for work, but ironically does not belong there. Today’s immigrants can have work, money and even fame, but do not belong anywhere; this is a new kind of immigrant who is part of an international phenomenon of universal immigrants.

Origins of communication

This work pays homage to all the immigrants who were able to collaborate and those who have not been able to be part of The Encyclopedia of Immigrants. It focuses on the origins of human communication and brings writing to its essence of mark making and is reference to primitive drawing, which was the origins of human communication. It also focuses on the possible extinction of the art of letter writing as we knew it and comments on how technology is shaping who humans communicate today through e-mails, mobile texting, messaging and social media. In the film you can see marks which come from letters that have been written by Immigrants and amplified using a digital microscope. There is Arab, Chinese and English writing, but when amplified to the essence of mark making, all the marks merge together as one language which has no barriers and like a poetic dance the letters are send to the wind and no longer belong to a particular country or culture, but to the human race.