Neither in nostalgia nor… is a prolongation of a recent project touching the issues of migration, movement, frontiers, journey based on a series of dialogues with the refugees in Kampala, coming from East African countries (mainly Eritrea and Ethiopia) and some from South Sudan and Somalia. Taking trees as a metaphor to represent life, beliefs, rituals, shade, journey, stillness, calmness, that project involved uprooting a big tree, moving it to a new area and planting it again to see if the roots will find their ways back into the soil. These movements were accompanied by the conversations and hustle with the system and city authorities in order to realise this project.
Neither in nostalgia nor… moves to a different setting, within the tree installation at the Neue Nationalgalerie, but pursues similar lines of enquiry. My body as a political figure moves through the trees, creating a dialogue through representation. Moving as a stranger from place to place, Addis Ababa – Kampala – Addis Ababa – Berlin, and all the issues that I encounter while being on this journey, on borders, landing fields, visas, Ebola, bring up a certain irony in the notion of security which goes hand in hand with fear.
Kindly supported by Goethe-Institut Addis Ababa
As part of Acting Archives funded by the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation
