Photo: Fredriksson, Emma / Tekniska museet

I’m Alive - life, death and mobile technology

6 objects

Something that can help you make contact with people who will help you. That shows that you’re alive and will capture your experience.

That saveguards memories from your life before escape, from your birthdays and fun outings with your cousins.

That can translate words like ice-cream, computer game, battery and safety to other languages.

That will help you figure out how many Syrian pounds there are to a Swedish krona.

Presumably it’s your smartphone. And perhaps an extra battery.

Today, people all over the world are dependent on digital technology this includes refugees. We all use our smartphones and the Internet to share experiences, get confirmation, information, comfort and hope.

We move through the same digital environments but with different purposes.

Popular apps like Facebook and Skype are also lifelines for people fleeing for their lives. While you are on the beach, updating your Instagram friends on your suntan, people in perilous situations are taking selfies to show relatives that they re alive. While GPS is helping you negotiate city traffic, refugees are using the same app to find the safest way across dangerous seas. While we’re taking pictures of graduating students, a refugee ight be looking at pictures of school friends to recall that there is such a thing as a normal life.

A working smartphone can mean the difference between life and dead, between despair and hope.

In the exhibition, refugees share stories of what smartphones and the mobile Internet have meant for them on their journey.

We have collected their stories and symbolic objects.

The exhibition also includes examples of solutions that have helped refugees and where digital and mobile technology plays a vital role.Something t

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