• Donate
    • Search form

Home
  • About
  • Cities of Refuge
  • Writers/artists
  • News
  • Resources
  • Get involved
  • Contact
Menu
20. Sep 2019

Borderline offensive - Laughing in the face of fear

Abduljabbar Alsuhili in performance during exhibition at Röda Sten Konsthall Borderline offensive - Laughing in the face of fear. The Museum of Real History. Photo.
Abduljabbar Alsuhili in performance during exhibition at Röda Sten Konsthall Borderline offensive - Laughing in the face of fear. The Museum of Real History. Photo: Courtesy of Borderline Offencive

Abduljabbar Alsuhili (AJ), first ICORN artist-in-residence in Helsingborg, is currently performing in The Museum of Real History with the artistic platform Borderline Offensive. The exhibition and performance suggest new ways of facing migration issues and invites the audience to create their own conspiracy theories and contest realities presented by mass media and radical groups.  

Abduljabbar Alsuhili (AJ) was the first ICORN artist-in-residence in Helsingborg in Sweden, in 2016-2018. During this period, he was part of several local artistic productions and projects. In 2018, AJ took part in the Borderline Offensive artistic residency in Gothenburg & Tjörn, a production of TILLT done in collaboration with the Nordic Watercolour Museum. This is where the idea for The Museum of Real History, recently exhibited at Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, originated.

- With the urgent need to relate to and find a place in the great predicaments of our reality – climate catastrophe, economic and social injustice, migration & cultural conflict – participants created totally false and totally believable theories that gave them a place, a meaning and a purpose in the big picture of contemporary history – isn’t that what we all seek every day? Says Tiago, one of the project coordinators after the exhibition at Röda Konsthall.

The Museum of Real History – who creates reality?

The installation, The Museum of Real History, is an artistic project laid out as a regular exhibition and showcases a collection of artworks posing as scientific evidence. There are manipulated photos, fake maps, drawings, earth models, in order to create an incontestable parallel reality presenting ridiculous, sarcastic ideas connected to migration.

The purpose is to emphasize the absurdity of the conspiracy theories and urban myths used by violent extremists (both ethnocentric and religious) to radicalize people and poison the public sphere with fear and xenophobia.

Melania Trump holding AJ's hand, twin towers in the back. From the exhibition Borderline Offensive: The Museum of Real History. Photo: Melania Trump holding AJ's hand, twin towers in the back. From the exhibition Borderline Offensive: The Museum of Real History. Courtesy of Borderline Offensive. Photo.

A lecture-performance by AJ within this “totally-not-fake exhibition” also explores conspiracy theories mixing fiction and harsh realities to create an alternate reality about global migration that nourishes mass-paranoia. Forced to confront their perception of reality and the myths it contained with the notion that realities can be fabricated, the audience is encouraged to create their own conspiracy theories within the exhibition space.

- The main reactions among the audience who visited the exhibition were to either laugh (was the truth presented in front of them more ridiculous than the urban myths imagined by extremists – and sometimes adopted and spread by political leaders?), to fall into introspection (assessing what “truths” they believed without question), or to be offended (leaving after/during the most sensitive scenes or asking the play to be changed afterwards), says Tiago.

Touring exhibition

The Museum of Real History is curated and presented by Abduljabbar Alsuhili, together with the Slovakian painter and new media artist Ivana Šateková and Omar Abi Azar from Zoukak Theatre Collective in Lebanon. It is comprised of three parts:

  • The exhibition
  • An artistic workshop for locals to develop their favourite conspiracy theory (e.g. chickpea industry is behind the Syrian war to increase falafel consumption in the European market...) and work on fake/autobiographical testimonies: a fusion between their real personal life, conspiracy theories and actual facts;
  • A lecture-performance by the fake curator, in which workshop participants can take part as fake audience members to enhance the fictional realities presented to real audiences.

The exhibition and performance is currently on in Serbia, on 20-21st of September, at the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade, an independent cultural centre founded by the late dramaturge and cultural activist, Borka Pavicevic. And after that, they will tour in Slovakia, Kosice as well as spaces in Netherlands, Croatia, in Malmö in Sweden, and Ireland is eyeing to book the exhibition and lecture performance next.

A quick look into the #borderlineoffensive pop-up exhibition at Röda Sten Konsthall. Film by Anna Hulth

Borderline Offensive

Borderline Offensive: Laughing in the face of fear is a platform for artistic research and art-based societal development, where European and Middle Eastern artists explore issues of migration, sociological contact zones, intercultural conflict and dialogue, collective identity-building, and community cohesion in contemporary Europe through new artistic creations. They use art and humour as a means of creative transgression, to broker dialogue between natives, old timers, newcomers and outsiders. 

Borderline Offensive hosted 5 transnational + transdisciplinary artistic residencies in 2018, across 5 European countries and resulted in many artistic projects.

Abduljabbar Alsuhili

Abduljabbar Alsuhili is an actor and cultural activist from Sanaʽa Yemen, using his craft for social and political change and development of performing arts scene in Yemen. As part of the Rwabiit Cultural and Media foundation, he has produced plays, stand-up comedy, radio and TV shows.

 

Latest news

  • Re:Writing the Future – in Berlin and around the world

    05.02.21

  • ICORN persists despite an unusual year.

    03.02.21

  • Ahmad Azzam, new ICORN resident in Gothenburg

    22.01.21

  • Action Over Despair: Reflections on 2019 and the Path Forward

    17.12.20

  • Welcome Detroit as New Member of ICORN

    09.12.20

  • Load more

Cities' guide to ICORN membership

More than 70 cities around the globe offer a safe space where writers and artists at risk can live and work through the ICORN programme.

Learn more

Application guide for writers and artists at risk

The application guide for writers and artsits at risk informs about criteria for residency consideration, how to apply, application form and important information if application is approved or not.

Learn more

Address

Icorn logo

c/o Sølvberget KF,
Stavanger Cultural Centre
p.o. box: 310 4002 Stavanger
Norway
icorn (at) icorn.org
Email ICORN

  • About
  • Cities of Refuge
  • Writers/artists
  • News
  • Resources
  • Get involved
  • Contact

Newsletter

Partners
  • Sølvberget
  • Pen
Sponsors
  • Sida
  • The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Fritt Ord

© 2021 icorn.org | Log in

Close

  • About
  • Cities of Refuge
  • Writers/artists
  • News
  • Resources
  • Get involved
  • Contact
  • Donate

Search form