Aleppo
2016 I Zürich
Aleppo was a mourning performance I made in the last year of the battle of Aleppo. The room is lit by a single lightbulb with a wire around it. In the corner there is a pile of white linen and a bucket next to it. I am in average western street wear and start slowly to tear a long string from the linen. I dip it into the bucket. When I lift the string up, it turns out that red liquid is in there. I hang the red dropping string onto the wire. I repeat these moves again and again. The room is getting slowly red then dark. Drops of the red paint serve the sinister background to the dreadful sound of tearing.
I performed Aleppo with the same scenario several times. The meaning of it was strongly affected by the scope within which I made it. At times the ritual caught every viewer’s attention and we all were mourning together. When I performed it at festivals, the viewers had no patience and left the room one by one leaving me almost alone with my sorrow for the world.
