The last few days? Consumed between the pain of war and the relief of carving silly veggies and fishes, like a child, pouting away in his(her) playpen.
However, I read a lot around the Palestine-Israel violence. And I glean extremely powerful thoughts which, although so simple and basic, and universally perceived, seam to have such a difficult time finding status. As if the ground they hibernate in required a soaking of human blood to bloom. Very simple indeed these two basics of life
sustainability: beauty and hope!
Beauty – Cannupa Hanska Luger is a native American artist Based in New-Mexico who, at the occasion of an ART 21 art21.org video clip, floored me when he declared that what makes an artist is the beauty of her/his life! Luger’s production may be eclectic and formally unbound, yet each of his pieces shows a sense of completion which affirms his dedication to the clarity of his intents. Below is an artist statement of his.
As a contemporary artist Indigenous to North America, I am motivated to reclaim and reframe a more accurate version of 21st century Native American culture and its powerful global relevance. The customary practices of the world’s Indigenous people have been imprisoned to the past. Indigenous craft and arts, when not cannibalized by western culture, are considered primitive or extinct. My practice is rooted in the continuum of generations before me, the urgency for Indigenous visibility in this moment and the dreaming of Indigenous futures. Building worlds and dismantling misconceptions through monumental installations, sculpture and performance, I place myself between the realms of contemporary art and Indigenous culture, moving amidst museums and the front lines to enact a more complex understanding of contemporary Indigeneity. The materials that I use are emblematic of human civilization including clay, textiles, steel and digital media. Clay signifies our connection to place, literally the ground on which we stand. We create textiles from plants and animals, reflecting our truly embodied relationship between fiber and flesh. Steel has allowed humans to develop, build and dominate; it provides the physical structures for control and capital. And technology now provides an opportunity to question our civility and our connectedness through durational and situational media. I activate speculative fiction as a methodology, a practice, a way of future dreaming, rooted in an Indigenous continuum. I engage in land-based performative actions to pledge accountability to the land and waters affected by resource extraction and industry. I practice empathetic response and community catharsis through craft based social collaboration. Whether working with institutions, communities or with the land itself, my work is inherently social and requires engagement. I aim to lay groundwork, establish connections and mobilize action – to challenge the systemic conditions of colonialism while making space for urgent and emergent Indigenous narratives.
It is clear that his understanding of beauty includes a sense of social and political values and responsibility.
Hope – This one has to do with Bilha and Yakovi Inon. Their son, Maoz deplores the death of his parents, burnt alive in their little wooden house, at the edge of the Wall of Shame between Israel and Gaza, in the village of Netiv HaAsara, on the 7th of October, when the Hamas invaded that area of Israel and killed more than a thousand locals.
Yakovi was a retired entrepreneur with a powerful sense of “the social”. For example, he created three hotels where guests, tourists or not, were exposed to the realities of his country: the reality of Jews and that of Palestinians. When asked by his son about the need to eliminate the Hamas, his answer – given to him just before his death – was as succinct as it was clear: “… the only way to eliminate the Hamas is to give hope! … Really, the only effective weapon we have is hope … based on the principle of a shared territory, a shared society …”. Somewhere else, in the article of Mediapart where I found the present material, he told the journalist who was questioning him: “… I feel you think I am naive. But I am not naive, even if I believe in the power of optimism. The real naiveté is to think that anything can be resolved by war.”
https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/191023/en-israel-les-militants-antioccupation-veulent-garder-le-cap-malgre-la-douleur
[Bilha et Yakovi Inon, ses parents septuagénaires, sont morts, brûlés vifs, lorsque des combattants du Hamas ont incendié la petite maison de bois où ils vivaient dans le village de Netiv HaAsara, à quelques encablures du poste-frontière d’Erez, au nord deGaza. Yakovi est un entrepreneur à la fibre sociale, issu d’une famille d’ouvriers et d’agriculteurs, qui a notamment cofondé les trois hôtels Abraham, situés à Jérusalem, Tel-Aviv et Eilat : des lieux qui cherchent à faire découvrir aux voyageurs et voyageuses non seulement les sites touristiques du pays, mais aussi les différentes composantes de la société israélienne, sans oblitérer le sort des Palestinien.nes. En ce moment, ses hôtels sont mis à disposition des 500 000 israélien·nes évacué·es du nord et du sud du pays.
Ne partage-t-il pas, néanmoins, la volonté d’éradiquer le Hamas après ce qu’il a fait ? « Mais la seule manière d’éliminer le Hamas, c’est de donner de l’espoir !, répond-il immédiatement. L’espoir est la seule arme véritablement efficace dont nous disposons. Et cet espoir ne peut se fonder que sur le principe d’une terre et d’une société partagées : un principe que je défends depuis 25 ans. »« Vous savez, enchaîne-t-il, je ne suis pas un intellectuel, je n’ai même pas le bac, mais la seule chose qui me permet de ne pas m’effondrer dans cette période obscure, c’est de regarder l’histoire. La relation actuelle entre la France et l’Allemagne aurait-elle été seulement imaginable en 1945 ? Qui aurait pu croire qu’en ce moment même des Israéliens aillent trouver refuge à Berlin ? »Il n’est pas nécessaire de lui poser la question pour qu’il poursuive. « Je sens que vous me trouvez naïf. Mais je ne suis pas naïf, même si je crois à la force de l’optimisme. La vraie naïveté est de penser qu’on va régler quoi que cesoit en faisant la guerre. ]
It is fascinating to see how the pressure of overwhelming violence is forcing observers everywhere to back off from the original stand, almost universal, that only Hamas is exercising terror. Israel is defending itself. Right now, it would take relatively little to give peace a future. Biden may have missed his chance, not with his trip to Israel (although cut short), but with his speeches. Not clear enough, still seemingly prioritizing the defense of Israel. This war is a-symmetrical after all. Biden should, we all should, remember that it takes two to hope. And if he remembers it – as of course he does – he should model his language anew, around this phrase. But, of course, he is not an artist! Could he see any virtue to remodeling his own language around words like hope, like dialogue, like equity? How about ‘shared territory’?
As artists, today, we have a chance to model our own artistic language around these words: hope, dialogue, equity, why not beauty? … Sorry about the beauty part … And the moral content. But, there is more to beauty than fleeting pleasure – There is transformation. There is more to moral that rectitude – There is integrity. So here I say:
As artists, today, we have a chance to model our artistic language around these words: beauty, hope, equity integrity and dialogue … and then, geography* … and more to come!
*Geography, here, is in reference to how Israel, from a potentially open and democratic state, is sliding more and more into the extreme exclusivism of identifying with a territory. This can only amplify within the collective conscious the sense of being besieged, unfairly besieged, victimized that is. Of course, we see here a mirror image with the Palestinian realities. Except that the besieged, the victim, is not Israel but Palestine.
I also extrapolate from Yakovi’s perception that the Palestinian territory, instead of being ‘occupied’ forcably, could be seen as a common – common ground, shared between Jews and Arabs. Just as, at one point in the future, the earth as a whole may have to be seen as belonging with humanity, thus eliminating the concepts of (im)migration, expatriation, even nationalism and therefore … internationalism … since the consolidation of any national borders is always enforced at the expense of a minority or an other, somewhere!