Stateless Bodies
The Political orientation of nations during crisis is also seen and understood through the death of a refugee. How much can we understand from these deaths and graveyards that are taking place in different countries and under different circumstances? In his book The deep times of the dead, Thomas Laqueur speaks about the importance of the dead body:
The dead body mattered and matters everywhere and across time; in particular times and particular places. In the presence and absence of religion and God. This matters because almost always, the living need the dead more than the dead need the living.
The graveyards becomes the place where not only the living give respect to their loved ones but also the place where they identify themselves through their dead.
These series of drawings deal with death and stateless bodies. More specifically, they look into the formal and informal graveyards in Jordan and Greece asking how they are thought, where and why they were established. Considering as well the causes of death and the importance and meaning behind burying a body in the context of asylum seekers, the Middle East culture and religion.
During the time of transit and migration, people move, objects are displaced, and also territories are redefined. Even during these transit trajectories there is always some sort of character that sticks with a person shaping a specific identity representing him/her. In his book The mass ornament, Siegfried Kracauer when talking about the hotel lobby starts with elaborating on the aesthetic meaning of things:
"The aesthetic rendering of such a life bereft of reality, a life that has lost the power of self-observation, may be able to restore to it a sort of language…"
The unity of the aesthetic construct, the manner in which it distributes the emphases and consolidates the event, gives a voice to the inexpressive world, gives meaning to the themes broached within it.
In this perspective representation can take form in a specific place or through an object, in a room or on a surface. What are the limitations of these kinds of representations? How much can they extend beyond the borders beyond the walls or surfaces that contain them, in order to project a sense of belonging?
