Narrating WAR / HABITAT 1

from L to R: Hatz Lambo Varia Sjöström and Ali Akbar Mehta, Konepaja, Helsinki, 2021

Narrating WAR / HABITAT 1 (I see so much when I am dying), performance by Ali Akbar Mehta and varialambo, as part of the RECIPROCITIES group exhibition curated by Christine Langenauer at Vantaa Taidemuseo ARTSI, Vaanta Finland.

Narrating WAR / HABITAT 1 (I see so much when I am dying)

Ali Akbar Mehta and varialambo

Konepaja, Helsinki

2021

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The performance installation Narrating WAR / HABITAT 1 (I see so much when I am dying) by Ali Akbar Mehta and varialambo (Varia Sjöström and Hatz Lambo) is a coming together of two discrete streams of thinking that reflect on the notions of violence, conflict and forms of countering them. While the performance Narrating WAR is based on a comprehensive, continually updated timeline of ‘wars, battles, sieges, revolutions, bombings and rebellions’ – from 3000 BCE up to the present, it is located within the universe of the HABITAT 1 as a sanctuary that facilitates interactive defragmentation. The performance claims that the most continuous history of humanity is the histories of conflict, and shifts the gaze to look at wars as ‘a single, global planetary civil war’. The aim of this performance is to ask ‘How to care for the pain of others?’ ‘How to Narrate War?