Exulansis
The atelier house is situated in Ulleråker, the former mental hospital (called the Asylum) in Uppsala, Sweden.
Sick and tired of the atrocities happening in since long occupied Palestine, I hung the Palestinian flag on the facade of our atelier house. I was expecting nothing but hoping to evoke clear cut steps towards solidarity with the Palestinian people. I hung also an abstract paper version of the flag; A negative of the original flag inside the atelier house.
As an Armenian, I know that it is the documenting of a genocide that makes genocide what it is. What it is.
When we as witnesses look away, displacement and genocide can take place without a trace. The efficiency of genocidal idea, apart from the killing of intellectuals, is ending woman and children’s lives. Children are the very seedlings of the landscape and the crops of its people. The people left behind with generational trauma.
The following day we received an email from the landlord saying we should remove the flag ASAP. Unfortunately the email did not state why we ought to remove it.
Upon arrival I found the flag next to the trash and the abstract version of the flag left on the floor facing my atelier door. Little did I know, a neighboring artist had removed it. I confirmed this in conversation with the landlord.
According to a fascistoides Gedankengut people have audacity to destroy art.
Despite making an active choice but the artist has not yet admitted to the removal. Furthermore, an artist asked me to remove even more art in the corridor of my atelier in a paternalistic manner.
I would like to ask the artist the following;
How come the Ukrainian and the Swedish flags in our atelier corridors are OK?
Can you see yourself in the genocide of the Palestinians?
It doesn’t matter that the genocide of the Palestinian people is the most well documented genocide in the history of humanity. Unlike Ukrainians, Palestinians are not a “perfect victim”, not white.
I now have hung the flag from inside the window facing the landscape, looking out of its imprisoning “home”. Visible from the outside but still unsafe and propelled into exulansis.
Artistic advice: Antoinette Belin
