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| Bar 25 (50x60cm, spraypaint on glass; photo: Petra Graf) |
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| Asylum Seeker Camp (50x60cm, spraypaint on glass; photo: Petra Graf) |
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| detail of the work above (photo: Petra Graf) |
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the potential and agency of human beings, individually and socially. It considers human beings as the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. (source: Wikipedia)
I am almost unable to cope with the continuous felonies Europe is doing against this heritage, against its highlighted moral and ethics, against humanity and most important: humans.
Of course, historically we are a continent of colonialists and in still holding our hands over stolen artifacts we stay in this horrible tradition of ours. Even worse we let people drown in the Mediterranean.
We are the source of their suffering, Europe's colonialism forged the situation of these “refugees” and instead of apologizing, we are doing our best to keep the situation status quo, instead of helping the desperate, we let them die.
My diptych shows the “always temporary” Bar 25 with all their international guests on the one side and a temporary refugee asylum (surrounded by barbwire!) in South-Germany on the other.
If you have been lucky enough to have had the right passport and/ or the money you would have been an appreciated guest at Bar 25, if you have/ had the wrong or even no passport, no money, no supporters you would have been send to the other “temporary venue”...
[By the way, it is important to me that I just took “Bar 25” as an example for well known temporary spaces to mark out the craziness of decisions about who has the opportunity to visit these spaces and who has not. The crew of Bar 25 was always open-minded and free of any racism!]