Where on Earth Are You?

The question of which side one stands on has (once again) gained enormous weight in recent years: right or left, rich or poor, on the side of Israel or Palestine, in front of or behind the border fence. Some positions can be chosen, others cannot – yet in both cases, they can have far-reaching social and existential consequences. National border policies are becoming increasingly restrictive. Those who attempt to cross these borders risk their lives. An unwanted political stance can cost someone their job, reputation, or funding. While those crossing the borders of Fortress Europe demand, with great courage and perseverance, their right to something other than a precarious life, on the other side of the fence, the fear of losing privileges leads to a decline in conviction, solidarity, and empathy. The exhibition Where on Earth Are You? calls for more courage to take a stand, to show solidarity, and to practice empathy. It brings together works by contemporary artists who respond to the increasingly precarious and authoritarian conditions of the present in critical, resistant, and at the same time empathetic ways. At its centre are lines of conflict shaped by the geopolitical reconfigurations that followed the Second World War. The title is taken from the essay of the same name by British author Frances Stonor Saunders, which examines the technologies and deadly consequences of today’s border regimes.

One starting point of the exhibition is the figure of the refugee: a figure that challenges the nation-state’s construction of identity as fixed to one’s place of birth. Rather than focusing on the dehumanisation of refugees, the exhibition draws attention to their insistence on life and a future.

A particular focus is placed on Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories, whose conditions, shaped by violations of international law, displacement, and destruction, are met with widespread apathy in Germany despite tens of thousands of deaths. The exhibition presents them as threshold spaces between everyday life and escalation, life and survival, isolation and solidarity, violence and care.

The increasing ideological hardening and authoritarian politics partly evoke the atmosphere of the Cold War. North and South Korea are among those national configurations whose borders still result from the geopolitical upheavals of that era. The exhibition approaches this situation as well as moments during the Cold War when forms of community other than the nation-state seemed possible – as discussed, for example, in the decolonial and non-aligned movements of the 1950s and 1960s.

The exhibition display is based on the previous exhibition resistant theatre by siren eun young jung. It includes a platform for exchange and discussion, which will also be used as part of Where on Earth Are You?. Like a palimpsest, the new exhibition inscribes itself into the previous one.

Haytham el-Wardany, Jess Flom, Dani Gal, Patricia Gómez / María Jesús González, Johan Grimonprez, Hassan Khan, Rosalind Nashashibi, Noh Suntag