Lama Altakruri (b.Abu Dhabi 1982) is an artist based in Ramallah, Palestine. Lama was raised in Bahrain before moving to Palestine in 1994. Lama is an artist and educator. Lama has been travelling and has immigrated to many places around the world. She has been speaking about what it means to be a Palestinian today and travel. @lamaaltakruri (*Please do not copy or download content without permission.)
Farid Alizai was born in Balochistan to Afghan immigrants. His parents fled to Balochistan in the 1970s and 80s when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Due to political unrest, Farid and his siblings had to flee Balochistan, and today Farid is an asylum seeker in Switzerland. Although he has no formal education, Farid speaks more than six languages, is a good cook, and is learning and working with his hands.
Françoise Vergès is a French political scientist, historian, film producer, independent curator, activist, and public educator. Her work focuses on postcolonial studies and decolonial feminism. Vergès was born in Paris and grew up in Réunion and Algeria before returning to Paris to study and become a journalist. Mrs. Verges's journey, books, and lectures inspired me so much, and last year, I had the opportunity to speak to her about her memories with Banana plants on La Réunion Island.
Azad Colemêrg comes from the Turkish part of Kurdistan, and he was a teacher there and taught history and geography at school. Due to the difficult situation in his home country, Azad now lives in Switzerland as a political asylum seeker. He is active as a performance artist and has performed at the ACT Performance Festival and the Johann Jacobs Museum, among others. Azad narrates his childhood memories of violent explosive land mines back in his homeland and the sound of helicopters in his mother tongue in Kurdish.
About Whispering Benches, a sculptural public art installation:
The original idea of Whispering Benches is to make the voices of minorities living among us heard, to explore the resistance in those voices, and to examine listening as a transformative process in relation to impact, the colonial past, and power. The work is also an invitation to reconsider listening as a symbiotic practice.
Storytelling, songs, and poetry played a central role in this project, describing alienation from home and family, migration, and the relationship to life in a new environment in the protagonists' own voices and words. The stories tell of the plight of individuals due to climate migration, war, environmental disasters, and political oppression.
The inspiration for this project is taken from the title of a bilingual anthology of Arabic poems by Mahmoud Darwish, " Unfortunately, it was Paradise. " The notion of Paradise as a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfilment - Switzerland is often described or imagined as Paradise by foreigners and is also characterised by the tourism industry. My Indian friends or family often tell me I live in Paradise! The contradictory interpretation of this somewhat naive view that I have landed here in Paradise has occupied me since I arrived in Switzerland a few years ago. The project title is thus an ironic commentary on this contradiction that accompanies me as an immigrant like many others. Lately, this concept has fascinated me to work with inmates in a closed prison in Graubünden (JVA Cazis Tignez). The project was started as an individual project. But naturally, in a short time, the project has become collective and collaborative. The work has been produced sustainably by the inmates in the wood workshops of the correctional facility.
The idea for a collaborative and public art project - Whispering Benches(benches with built-in audio installations in public spaces) - was born in this sense also as a reaction to this situation and to overcome the isolation it created during the pandemic. It aims to enable people to encounter and hear micro-stories and thus fragments of other lives in public, especially in the small villages in Switzerland.
The project was curated by Gianni Jetzer and exhibited in three locations in the canton of Aargau: Möriken-Wildegg, Lengnau, and Baden. However, these migratory benches are looking for the possibility to migrate from one place to another. This public art action will serve as a community-building project and rely on the interaction and active engagement of the audience. The project aims to build community through a nationwide travelling art experience that transforms and activates public spaces.
Please, listen generously!
Artist:
Curator:
Gianni Jetzer
Special Thanks to:
Contributors:
-Ella Ronen
-Ali Reza
-Lama Altakruri
-Milena Petrovic
-Farid Alizai
-Azad Colemêrg
-Vandria Borari.
-Ayliz Baskin Huber
-Marshal Bhebhe
-Annabelle van Puijenbroek
-Françoise Vergès
Production:
JVA Cazis Tignez - Office of Corrections - Canton Graubünden in the in-house carpentry workshop.
Graphic Design:
Anirban Ghosh
Sound designer/ editor:
Stefan Bauer
Additional Support:
Claudia Spinelli, Kunstraum Baden
Cornelia Ackermann, Kunst Im Trudelhaus
Photo and Video Documentation:
Advisory and collaboration
Martina Huber, We are AIA, Zurich
Special thanks to:
Gemeindehaus Morieken-Wildegg.
Gemeindehaus Lengnau.
Kunst Im Trudelhaus Baden.
Aargauer Kunsthaus.
The project is supported by:
Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.
Kulturstiftung der Credit Suisse Aargau
Hans und Lina Blattner Stiftung
LEBENSRAUM AARGAU