May 10, 2024
Yesterday my heart was pounding heavily until 3am because I didn’t know whether and how I should reply to the curator in a small cultural city in Austria who is also a friend.
She invited me to give one of my workshops on creative resistance in the biggest museum in the town. Her colleague, who is responsible for art education in this museum, had informed me that my workshop would take place within the exhibition of an Israeli artist loyal to the state and that I should send her a few lines about my workshop.
My lines were:
‘I do not agree with her curatorial intervention and would like to either build a protective igloo outside the museum where I will hold my workshop or come at another time.’
I added an up-to-date link to the UN website, pointing out the life-threatening situation in Rafah.
May 11, 2024
Yesterday the curator friend tried to call me privately on a Friday afternoon—The Austrian way. This works well for most Austrians, less so for Palestinians.
Since then, my heart has started pounding very hard. I’m losing the mission. I’m threatening the relationship with the curator. I don’t know exactly how to defend myself this time without letting go of important ties and at the same time expressing exactly how brutal the situation is. Today and for 75 years. And my whole life in Europe.
In between, a decaffeinated coffee in the garden with the neighbours. The Austrian teacher asks if I don’t feel uncomfortable at the protests against the genocide. The right-wing nationalists would be there too, as she has read in the ‘Standard’. My daughter is babysitting her children, feel a bit sick.
The micro-aggressions multiply. Less contact, hardly any normal conversations. More lies for which I have less energy to refute.
Went for a walk. I could pour my heart in the café of an Iranian-Kurdish artist. Luckily in Vienna live other foreigners and other marginalized people. I experienced a mutual understanding of each other without having to justify ourselves first. Solidarity in everyday life is a blessing. It cannot be taken for granted.
In his opinion there is no need to explain myself further. If there are political groups that want to support me in my dealings with the museum, I should go down that route. Mo, the founder of ‘JudeobolschewienerInnen’ offered her solidarity to me in between some phone calls. JBW are a group of anti-zionist Jews who are re-introducing ‘Doikayt’, the acceptance of ‘hereness’. It’s great and unique that Jewish anti-Zionists would write a letter to the museum on my behalf! It’s simply not a private matter.
Finally today I sent the curator a mail at 12:30 am. In which I acknowledge her attempt to mediate as a friend of both parties, but have to reject the idea for reasons such as an almost century-long apartheid and the current genocide. That the negligence of these facts in Europe can no longer be considered a peccadillo: To invite Palestinian artists to exhibit and put them together with Israeli art believing that they have made a contribution to peace and understanding is ignorant. A common behaviour that is lacking education, knowledge and ethical sensitivity. Still rejecting to understand the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. They play the innocent fool. Like a pregnant virgin.
The forced normalisation reverses the injustice, the murders, the robberies, the rapes, the arrests, the hostage-takings, the destruction of houses, the mutilations, the torture, the deprivation of human rights, the hypocrisy, the arms deals on which Europe thrives. Sweeping the current genocide under the kelim.
Now to the Saturday demo. Breathing in the swirling dust.
Back again home analysing the situation once more:
My body-art-life alarm concerning the curator was amplified by what happened earlier this year.
In March I went to a music event in Volkskunde Museum Vienna hosted by a befriended musician who is composing modular music. This museum started offering participative culture. Some years ago I offered my Fashion Recycling workshops to them and never got a reply.
I enjoyed the concert in which only a few visitors attended. Spotted a colleague from a long time ago. Am, a photographer who also took part in an exhibition at Salzburger Kunstverein in 2007 when I won the annual award with my work Wall Tatoo. We immediately reconnected and chatted all night. He and his wife Ev had bought a house in Lower Austria, like me, so we had something to talk about. He invited me for a guided tour through an exhibition Ev had organized at Galerie nächst St. Stephan of Rosemarie Scharzwälder in the first district.
It is one of the most prestigious galleries in Vienna which I haven’t visited before. In an imperial building you enter an elegant old apartment on the second floor with high ceilings, creaking parquet floor and double wooden window frames. Ev had researched the history of the founder of the gallery Otto Kallir who had to flee the Nazi regime. A beautifully and diligently elaborated exhibition as an hommage to Mr Kallir who was the first to bring avant-garde artists to Vienna.
Some hand picked persons were present, obviously all friends.
After the show Am and his wife Ev cordially invited me to have a drink afterwards with some of the visitors who also joined the table at Café Engländer. A distinguished place, not inviting and warm. Serving the purpose of feeling important in a sophisticated way. I accepted the invitation because I could not think of an excuse quickly enough I was open to the experience to prove my prejudices concerning gatherings of artists with art historians in snobby spots.
Am is such a positive person, he invited me for a bike tour in Lower Austria, even to stay at his cottage. I ordered an espresso, given the range of prices I didn’t want to support the decadence of this kind of gastronomy. The one who has only some drops to drink can always make an early exit without explanation, in case things would develop for the worse.
Two men besides Am were at the table and later Ev joined us. One of them was the director of the Volkskunde museum and the other one did not introduce himself. They asked how Am and I knew each other. We told them about our mutual participation in the exhibition in Salzburg. “What kind of work did you show?”, the curator asked. I took a deep breath. ”I painted with olive oil on the wall”, I started. “A portrait of my ancestral family in Palestine in 1959. Called ‘WALL TATOO’”. The P-word was out.
Hammering on the table with an axe would have been considered less violent.
“But, do you condemn the attacks of October 7th?”, the museum man asked immediately without reacting to my previous information about my work.
I started calmly ironing the table cloth with my flat hand and answered:
“I condemn violence, every form of violence.”
I felt all the muscles of the man in front of me tighten. Am was sitting to my right and seemed to be still easy. My answer hasn’t threatened him. The anonymous man asked something about Hamas and I answered something like:
“In the face of genocide I think that is appropriate.”
He answered something like:
“This is ridiculous…”
Since that moment a frontline was crossing the table. A decision had to be taken. About who should leave before it gets loud and ugly. Me and my espresso were very confident to stay and I kept smiling. The unknown guy ordered the bill and left the table muttering something.
At that moment Ev joined us and brought a fresh atmosphere with her. She cordially tried to connect the curator and me because my workshops would fit so perfectly well into his cultural program.
I nodded approvingly, waved my chin to him, raised my eyebrows to make him answer. He evaded a clear response. Ev seemed to be confused, her attempts at turning the conversation to a more positive place were quickly blunted. The curator emanated smothering vibes stiffening the atmosphere. When we left together, the curator tried to grill me in the usual way to find out how much of an extremist I am. I have done everything I could do to play it safe. Regarding the fact that I desperately need work and contacts. Despite being me.
This encounter is why I encouraged myself to call the befriended curator It. To see if I as an artist with an opinion can still get a job. We had a very warm meeting in a beautiful café in Vienna. I explained to her that I was looking for an art institution to host my CREATIVE RESISTANCE workshop. Soon after she offered me the opportunity. I regained my confidence that I could still function as a politically engaged Palestinian German artist in Austria. Now I have this situation in which I shall serve as a stooge in front of an artwork that uses archaeological findings from Ghaza as a testimony for queendom by an artist that represented the state of Israel in the Venice Biennale.
I was asked to acknowledge her work and build a one-sided relationship with my work. The Israeli artist doesn’t even know that a Palestinian artist like me would be performing in front of her work.
As a Palestinian artist I should consider myself lucky to be chosen being sided with an Israeli artist. When it comes to Palestinians the museum wants to profit from the attention that this tension could bring––in a cheap way.
The igloo idea wasn’t even noticed. I would have liked it. My smartest way to realize this project is to be supported by a Jewish anti-Zionist person. Mo promised to defend me in any way they could. Not that I couldn’t do it, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Mo’s voice has more value in their ears. That still is a fact we fight against together.
June 14, 2024
Today I arrived in Salzburg. Took my granny of a foldable bike with me on the train, two cargo bags in the back filled with my camera stuff and rode from the train station Salzburg to Nonntal where I stayed in X’s house. He is a brilliant cello player. We were neighbours for almost 12 years. Cooking in each other’s kitchens, taking care of each other’s kids. Salzburg welcomed me warmly.
The next day I would give the workshop at Museum der Moderne. I chose to install the workshop in the foyer, a draughty but prominent space.
June 15, 2024
Arrived at the museum, was welcomed very friendly by my curator friend and we instantly started to give the space a shape. We put some tables together, I decorated the sterile and noisy walls with some of my ‘PALESTINE VULVA’S’ and fixed my iconic ‘JEANSKAMEL THRONG’ in the visual center of the foyer.
Mo arrived in time. With the befriended curator we had lunch at the museum’s restaurant. Important persons in overrated places. Tip-toeing around the elephant in the room. Rather snobby experience. Sans éclat.
As a surprise an artist colleague arrived and brought a friend. Strangers came by. Many persons from the museum’s staff joined us. The current director of Salzburger Kunstverein too. Another friend who is working as a pedagogue in another museum was dropping in. My son and his family took part. It was a great pleasure watching this diverse group of participants bent over their small individual work, talking in low voice, immersed. This kind of work creates an atmosphere of togetherness, of mutually acknowledging each other and in the best case, of understanding without speaking. It is fascinating how textile work creates a peaceful atmosphere. We embroidered buttons, designed signs and symbols on our clothes. During and after the workshop we presented our results to each other. All happy faces.
The result of my fight for the realisation of the CREATIVE RESISTANCE workshop was satisfying, it is important to offer creative gatherings within an artful atmosphere. A peace hive. Mo and me paved the way for cooperations between Palestinians and their supporters in the art business. Like having a magic machete in the art jungle. Our next collaboration is MINOUMENT, an installation in public space about violence against unarmed women in wars.