Following last week’s contribution “Blind Orders“, here are the latest works from Berlin-based Palestinian artists Rasha Al Jundi and Michael Jabareen.
The art and cultural scene in Berlin specifically and in Germany as a whole, hasn’t been “Palestinian-friendly” for some time now, long before October 7th 2023. The loose use of the anti-Semitism card against Palestinian or pro-Palestinian culture creators by a curator, art space, event funder or biased politician has led to the cancellation of events or award ceremonies for those culture creators. In some cases, this madness has led to unfair legal action against the latter.
As struggling artists ourselves, we decided to take this issue up in this image, which includes a pair of white sneakers as the abandoned items.
Titled “Cancelled Remains”, this image features two of the most spotted wildlife dwellers in the urban landscape of Berlin. Rats and foxes blend into the general cultural sector of the city, taking up its typical arrogant attitude. The city’s art bosses rushed to cancel Palestinian and pro-Palestinian artists’ activities including talks and exhibitions (we don’t even know where to pitch any work in this hostile context).
At the time of writing this caption (31.12.2023), we had lost more than 22,000 Palestinians in occupied Palestine. Many of those lost lives were culture creators. In the midst of the genocide, a mother in besieged Gaza held up what remained of her killed son: his white shoes. She screamed in agony and kissed the shoes.
Now imagine her son was an artist and the “civilised” world held an exhibition of his remains for entertainment.
Image taken in Kreuzberg, Berlin (2023).
