The Testimony of a Refugee I - Question Time, 2017. Exhibited at the Cafe Gallery Project, London, 2018. Various dimensions - cherry tree root, plywood, nine amber resins, school chairs and panel lights
The Testimony of a Refugee II - Que Sera Sera Whatever Will Be Will Be, 2018. Various dimensions - cherry tree root, 16 amber resins, plywood, MDF, timber, screenprint on 5 acrylics, one-way mirror window film, high-definition monitor and player, headphone and school chairs.
The Testimony of a Refugee II - Que Sera Sera Whatever Will Be Will Be, 2018. High-definition single-channel video (color), 1/1 (Ed. of 1 + AP) / 6min.9sec., loop.
One work, two testimonies. A cherry tree root lies on a chair at the edge of the platform, uprooted, bare, displaced. Around it, amber resins cast with gold flakes: tree resin made precious, time made visible. Mousharabiah screens frame the platform, reflecting the tree root and the viewer simultaneously.
Two school chairs on the platform. One occupied by the tree root. Behind it, a screen, the animated root counting its journey across the Mediterranean Sea. The other chair waits. The spectator is invited to sit. To witness. To share the crossing.
Between the two chairs, the Mediterranean Sea is engraved into the floor. The distance that cannot be crossed. The sea as the fourth wall.
In Question Time, the spectacle of war is observed, directed, performed. “Pictures don’t speak for themselves,” wrote Susan Sontag. They need context. The image cannot be understood without the necessary knowledge.
In Que Sera Sera, Whatever Will Be Will Be. The song plays. The world shrugs. The refugee remains.