Gare à la sécurité / Beware of security

from the notebook, 2025

Neringa Naujokaite. Sky behind bars, photography. 2024

Digital photography, 2025

800 Metres in Russia, 4K video, 1’49”, 2025

A tree in Tschernihiw. Feb 12, 2025
(Street view 2015)

[English below]

Le choc des images ?

Printemps 1945. L’armée américaine force les civils allemands à défiler devant des milliers de cadavres suppliciés. Les soldats veillent à ce que les vaincus constatent de leurs propres yeux les crimes dont ils prétendent n’avoir jamais rien su. Les files sont interminables. On passe la mine fermée, la tête basse. On se bouche le nez, on tente de se cacher le visage, on se retient de vomir. Ni cris d’effroi, ni larmes, le silence est terrible. Il n’y a là que des vieillards, des femmes et des enfants. Les hommes et les adolescents sont tous prisonniers de guerre. Quelques semaines plus tard, l’armée d’occupation organise partout dans les villes, les villages et les camps de prisonniers des séances de cinéma obligatoires. On montre à l’écran des monceaux de corps décharnés retournés par des pelleteuses. La salle, où veillent des sentinelles américaines, reste assez éclairée pour surveiller les spectateurs qui tentent de se boucher les yeux. Le commentaire détaille des atrocités inouïes. Les Américains espèrent par cet électrochoc extirper le venin nazi de millions de cervelles.

La suite a démontré leur naïveté. Ce genre de venin n’est guère sensible aux images.

Les quinze mois qui viennent de s’écouler à Gaza nous ont montré que, même diffusées en direct, les images n’empêchent plus rien.

Does seeing make a difference?

Spring 1945. The American army forced German civilians to march past thousands of tortured corpses. The soldiers made sure that the defeated saw with their own eyes the crimes they claimed to have never known about. The queues were endless. People walked past with their faces closed and their heads down. They held their noses, tried to hide their faces and held back from vomiting. No cries of horror, no tears, the silence was dreadful. There were only old people, women and children. The men and teenagers were prisoners of war. A few weeks later, the occupying army organized compulsory cinema screenings throughout the towns, villages and prison camps. The screen showed piles of corpses turned over by diggers. The theatre, manned by American sentries, remained bright enough to keep an eye on the spectators, who tried to cover their eyes. The commentary detailed unimaginable atrocities. The Americans hoped this electroshock would extract the Nazi venom from millions of brains.

They proved to be naive. This kind of venom is hardly affected by images.

The last fifteen months in Gaza have shown us that, even when broadcast live, images no longer prevent anything.

https://archives.crownproject.art/art-women-resistance-ritual

“The drop of milk” was a hospital in Mogador in the early 1950’s. As in many other Moroccan towns, the Jewish community was very active in welcoming and caring for Jewish and Muslim infants alike.

This milky way moves me as the fratricidal war destroys all hopes. Universal maternal breasts that keep newborns safe, the innocents who find refuge there. Peace is dreamed as a universal breast.

Надiя

Надежда, Надзея, Naděžda, Nada, Nadja…

Hope is a woman’s name. It is a common name shared between Slavic cultures. It is a translation of the Greek name Eλπίς (Elpis) a minor Goddess. Elpis, Hope, was the last thing remaining in Pandora’s box, after she had opened it and released so many ills.  

Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. [translation of Hesiod, Wikipedia entry on Elpis accessed 6^th January, 2024]

So Pandora’s curiosity was accursed, and we are lucky enough that hope didn’t escape and remains to comfort people, or was it the opposite and (idle, false) hope was another curse that Pandora’s box kept in check, locked away, hidden.  

Are women supposed to carry the weight of hope? Or represent or perform or hold onto, hope? Hope is weightless, unrealistic, unbelievable sometimes.  Hopes float and carry you away on a bubble or they are dashed and bring you down to earth. Hopes are heavenly, while troubles are earthly, weighing you down. But hope carries you into the future, buoys you up, moves you on, takes you forward, or at least keeps you afloat. Every child represents hope to her parents, and to others too.     

dum spiro spero – while I breathe, I hope. I first saw this motto on a postcard, beneath a gloomy tartan-draped figure representing the clan MacLennan. It conjured a bleak, worthy trudge through life.

Hope is a theological virtue in Christianity along with faith and love, and the cardinal virtues of temperance, justice, prudence, and fortitude.  

Hope can feel good. It is life itself, like breathing – a sign of being alive. Breathing and hoping. Suck the air in, feel your rib cage expand and slowly release. Counting breaths to slow down your breathing prises open a sliver of time and space for a bubble of hope, interrupts the racing thoughts and fears. Listen to the air travel through your body, on to somewhere, someone, else. But only if there is air and space to breathe. Rami Abou Jamous claps with his two-year old son when he hears explosions in Gaza, to help him believe they are fireworks. [Read Anne Brunswic’s post, republishing Rami Abou Jamous, ‘J’ai fais mon sourire de clown et ça a marché’, December 10, Crown Letter Week 203]

Hope against fear. Hope against death.  Hope is a holding place, held onto with and for love, when you can’t afford rage.

Plantes résistantes II (Resistant plants II)

Photography, collective performance in situ (Gonesse Triangle, Paris region), photographic installation.
A part of the larger long-term project Paris countryside, triangular landscape (2017-2025).

#2 _ 14,9 x 21 cm, watercolor on paper, 2024

Katja Stuke, o.T. Planetarium DongGang, 2023

Cette carte m’a été donnée par la navigatrice Dee Caffari, dans le cadre d’une vente pour les associations de sauvetage en mer. Le jour de cette publication quarante personnes viennent de périr englouties.

This map was given to me by sailor Dee Caffari, as part of a sale for sea rescue associations. On the day of publication, forty people had just perished.

[English translation below]

Journal de bord de Gaza, par Rami Abou Jamous

Mercredi 20 mars

La nuit de lundi à mardi a été terrible, une nuit sanglante sur la ville de Rafah. Des bombardements intensifs ont causé la mort de quinze personnes, en majorité des femmes et des enfants. Les bombes ont commencé à tomber à 17h, tout près de là où on vit. Les enfants – ceux de mon épouse, Sabah, que je considère comme mes propres enfants, et notre fils Walid – ont eu très peur. Walid, qui a deux ans et demi, s’est réveillé pendant la nuit. Il a toujours le même réflexe : il applaudit quand il entend une explosion. Je lui ai appris ça quand on était encore à Gaza-ville, quand ça bombardait 24h/24, 7 jours/7, et quand les vitres se brisaient dans la tour où on habitait. C’était pour lui faire croire que les explosions faisaient partie d’un spectacle, que c’était un feu d’artifice.

Et donc quand les explosions ont commencé lundi, il a applaudi, et il m’a regardé dans les yeux, pour que j’applaudisse avec lui, comme on le faisait avant. Alors je l’ai regardé en souriant et j’ai applaudi. Même chose la nuit, quand il y a eu des bombardements vers 2 heures du matin. J’ai fait mon habituel sourire de clown, et ça a marché. Mais ça ne marche pas avec les autres enfants, qui ont entre 9 et 13 ans. Surtout pour l’aîné, Moaz, qui a très peur des bombes. Il est venu à côté de moi – on dort tous dans la même pièce, sur des matelas, les uns à côté des autres. Je lui ai dit : « Ne t’inquiète pas, c’est loin… » Mais c’est difficile de mentir avec lui, parce qu’il comprend ce qui se passe. J’essaye alors de le convaincre que ça ne va pas arriver jusqu’à nous. Il me demande :

« — Est-ce que ça va se rapprocher ? Est-ce que c’est nous la prochaine cible ? Est-ce que c’est nous la prochaine maison ?
— Mais non, pourquoi ils nous viseraient ? Pourquoi ? On n’a rien à voir avec tout cela.
— Oui, mais tous ceux qui sont morts, ils n’avaient rien à voir non plus. »

Il a des amis qui sont morts de la même façon, dont toute la famille a été bombardée. Et tous ces gens n’avaient rien à voir ni avec les factions, ni avec la branche armée du Hamas, ni avec la politique. À chaque fois que je cherche un prétexte, il me répond par des faits. La seule chose que je peux alors dire à Moaz, c’est : « Ne t’inquiète pas, Dieu nous protège, il ne va rien se passer. Dans quelques années, on sourira de tout cela. On dira : ” Tu te rappelles quand tu t’es réveillé et que tu as eu peur ?” »

Le problème, c’est que je n’arrive pas toujours à le convaincre. Le pire, c’est quand il me dit : « Mais je crois qu’ils ont déjà visé des journalistes, et toi tu es un journaliste. » Et là je ne peux pas répondre grand-chose. Je dis : « Ne t’inquiète pas, je suis journaliste, mais je ne suis pas une vedette. D’habitude, ils visent des stars, et moi je suis juste un petit journaliste. J’essaie juste de faire mon boulot. Je ne suis pas assez connu pour qu’ils me visent. Je ne suis pas un danger pour les Israéliens. » Et Moaz de me regarder toujours sans trop y croire.

Jeudi 2 mai

Comme vous savez, j’ai appris à Walid à applaudir quand il entend un bombardement, pour lui faire croire que c’est une sorte de jeu. Lundi, il a applaudi plusieurs fois, très fort. Cette fois, ça m’a vraiment fait peur. Les bombes tombaient tout autour de nous. Ça s’est intensifié. Ça m’a fait peur parce qu’on parle d’un cessez-le-feu qui se rapproche. Et on sait très bien que quand il y a une annonce de cessez-le-feu, la guerre s’intensifie dans les dernières heures qui précèdent.

Dimanche 26 mai

Hier, j’ai vu mon petit Walid courir après les chats, cherchant à les frapper avec un bâton. Je me suis aperçu que son caractère changeait. Sabah, ma femme, m’a montré les vidéos qu’on prenait de lui au début de la guerre, où il caressait les chats et leur faisait des bisous. Avant, il était proche des animaux.

Sa voix non plus n’est plus la même. Avant, il parlait très doucement. Aujourd’hui, il s’exprime souvent en parlant très fort, même pour dire des choses banales. Est-ce à cause de ces presque huit mois de guerre que la violence monte en lui ? Je le crois. J’ai constaté la même chose chez les enfants de mes amis. Et je pense que ce changement va rester au moins un bon moment. Je croyais pouvoir protéger mon fils en lui faisant croire que tout ce qu’il se passe est une sorte de cirque. Quand les Israéliens bombardent, on applaudit ensemble, comme si c’était un jeu, et comme si les applaudissements éloignaient le danger. Mais nous ne vivons pas seul, et Walid voit bien que les autres ont peur, qu’ils sursautent, qu’ils crient et qu’ils rentrent chez eux en courant. Il comprend que le danger est toujours là.

Rami Abou Jamous, fondateur de GazaPress, a reçu en octobre 2024 le prix Bayeux des correspondants de guerre. Depuis février 2024, son “Journal de bord de Gaza” est publié en ligne par Orient XXI. Il vient de paraître en livre (pas encore traduit) grâce aux éditions Libertalia. Depuis le 7 octobre 2023, plus de 140 journalistes palestiniens sont morts.

Gaza Diary, by Rami Abou Jamous

Wednesday March 20th

Monday night was a terrible, bloody night in the town of Rafah. Intensive bombardment caused the death of fifteen people, most of them women and children. The bombs started falling at 5pm, very close to where we live. The children – those of my wife, Sabah, whom I consider my own children, and our son Walid – were very scared. Walid, who is two and a half, woke up during the night. He still has the same reflex: he applauds when he hears an explosion. I taught him this when we were still in Gaza City, when the bombing was going on 24/7, and when the windows were breaking in the tower block where we lived. It was to make him believe that the explosions were part of a show, that it was a firework display.
So when the explosions started on Monday, he applauded and looked me in the eye so that I would applaud with him, as we used to do. So I looked at him, smiled and applauded. The same thing happened at night, when there were bombings at around 2am. I did my usual clown smile, and it worked. But it didn’t work with the other children, who are between 9 and 13. Especially for the eldest, Moaz, who is very scared of bombs. He came next to me – we all sleep in the same room, on mattresses, next to each other.

I told him: ‘Don’t worry, it’s a distance…’. But it’s hard to lie to him, because he understands what’s going on. So I try to convince him that it’s not going to reach us. He asks me: ‘Will it get any closer? Are we the next target? Are we the next house? – No, why would they target us? Why should they? We’ve got nothing to do with all that. – Yes, but all those who died, they had nothing to do with it either.’
He has friends who died in the same way, whose whole family was bombed. And all these people had nothing to do either with the factions, or with the armed wing of Hamas, or with politics.” Every time I look for a pretext, he replies with facts. The only thing I can tell Moaz is: ‘Don’t worry, God is protecting us, nothing is going to happen. In a few years’ time, we’ll be smiling about all this. They’ll say: ‘Do you remember when you woke up and you were scared?“

The problem is that I can’t always convince him. The worst is when he says to me: ‘But I think they’ve already targeted journalists, and you’re a journalist’. And then I can’t say much. I say: ‘Don’t worry, I’m a journalist, but I’m not a star. Usually, they go for stars, and I’m just a small journalist. I’m just trying to do my job. I’m not famous enough for them to target me. I’m not a danger to the Israelis.” And Moaz is still looking at me without really believing it.

Thursday May 2nd

As you know, I taught Walid to clap when he hears a bombing, to make him think it’s some kind of game. On Monday, he clapped several times, very loudly. This time it really scared me. The bombs were falling all around us. It intensified. It scared me because we’re talking about a near ceasefire. And we all know very well that when there’s an announcement of a ceasefire, the war intensifies in the last few hours beforehand.

Sunday May 26th

Yesterday, I saw my little Walid running after cats, trying to hit them with a stick. I noticed that his character was changed. Sabah, my wife, showed me the videos we took of him at the start of the war, where he would stroke the cats and give them kisses. He used to be close to animals.
His voice isn’t the same either. He used to speak very softly. Now he often speaks very loudly, even to say the most banal things. Is it because of these almost eight months of war that the violence is rising in his voice? I think so. I’ve seen the same thing in my friends’ children. And I think this change is going to last for a while at least. I thought I could protect my son by making him believe that everything that was happening was some kind of circus. When the Israelis bomb, we applaud together, as if it were a game, and as if the applause kept the danger away. But we don’t live alone, and Walid can see that the others are scared, that they jump up, shout and run home. He understands that the danger is always there.” [ Translation Anne Brunswic]

Rami Abou Jamous is the founder of GazaPress. His ‘Gaza Diary’ has been published online by Orient XXI since February 2024. It is now a book (not yet translated) published by Libertalia. Rami Abou Jamous was awarded the Bayeux Prize for war correspondents in October 2024. More than 140 Palestinian journalists have died since 7 October 2023.

Fear – we are programmed to feel it, in order to survive. This is an obvious and common sense understanding. On the other hand, fear is also a lived and cumulative experience, and if we look into the eyes of a new-born baby, the first thing we glimpse is probably fear. But what has a baby experienced? A previous death? Or something it already can’t remember? Or what did it encounter while outside corporeal existence? In any case, the experience is undoubtedly transcendental, its trace remaining in the unconscious of every individual being and more broadly that of the collective. Fear goes unnoticed and is intangible under normal conditions; it is a phantom, or a latent horror film that each person creates for himself, if he is not able to keep his mind under control.

Fear is therefore binary: it is there, but at the same time it doesn’t exist. It pops up like a Jack-in-the-box. This toy represents the essence of fear: as long as we don’t know what is there, we can’t be afraid; and as soon as we do know what is there, there is nothing to be afraid of either – we see a painted doll! But we are scared, and it is almost funny. Perhaps we are afraid of the unknown, or more likely it is the fear of death, the fear of nothingness veiled and deeply buried in our unconscious. Fear is an energy that preserves our existence and at the same time destroys the serenity of the psychic experience, something immaterial, but nevertheless tightly connected to our physical existence in this material world and in this body.

In contemporary society, death is a kind of taboo. It is not done to talk about it. It prevents us from enjoying life. But it is an inalienable fact. Everyone knows very well that they will die, but nobody wants to. And this is a big conflict in our consciousness. Although we see death everywhere we stubbornly turn away from it in disgust because it makes us suffer. And perhaps the highest degree of fear is caused not by death as a natural lawful process, but by violent death: a terrible injustice that takes away our very right to exist. It is impossible to cope with this fear or fight against it, it restrains and deprives the weak creature of will, and only the strong can sometimes resist it.

I experienced such fear for the first time in the summer of 2014.

I was picking raspberries in the garden of my house in Luhansk when the war in Donbas started. At first I didn’t even realise what was happening. Suddenly the air was filled with a monstrous sound. Everything suddenly began to vibrate and this thunder grew more and more until it turned into a terrible cutting whistle and I saw a shell pass over the roof of the house bending the trees. I didn’t even realise how I ran onto the porch scattering all the raspberries. Everything happened incredibly slowly, as if in slow motion. It seemed that my legs didn’t move as fast as they should. Running into the house I saw how everything jumped from the terrible explosion and rumbled, rattled and knocked, although the explosion happened quite far from the house and there was a ringing in my ears for a long time…. and shouting to my mum, ‘I’m OK’ I didn’t hear my voice or her answer to me …

At that moment I realised the horror of the destructive power of human anger and stupidity – and amazingly all fear disappeared. In its place there was something new: I don’t know, maybe a desire to survive, to fight, to defend myself, to withstand.

From that moment, a lot happened. All summer the city was bombed; there was no water, light, communication, normal food, no information … but no fear either. Or rather there was – because there was a realisation that it could strike at any moment – death would come suddenly. But paradoxically, fear even became a friend …

And now in 2024, I find myself in the same place, in a full-scale war, having lost my mother, many friends, and thousands and thousands of people I do not know, towns and villages wiped from the face of the earth, destroyed homes and destinies.

And worst of all, the fate of the whole world hanging by a thread. And now fear has been elevated to a new degree, it has become universal, but not everyone realises it yet. Perhaps the worst fear is madness: only a madman is capable of destroying everything around him and himself. Truly, he knows not what he is doing.

I looked up at this rocky ledge, layers of quartzite extending between me and the sky above and descending straight down into the valley below. The weight of the wall made my head spin, threatening to overpower individual polar-fleece-clad bodies scrambling along a narrow walking path. I could picture the stone crushing everything in its’ wake. Mass deportation.

Twice the population of Sweden. Removed.

Feeling like this rock or Antony Gormley’s Space Station or Richard Serra’s steel could fall on me (but probably won’t).

But the hammer has fallen on others before. It’s falling 6,117 miles away and will fall here again soon enough (after all, I am a woman in a “red” state).

The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands that called this mountain “Jomeokee”, meaning “great guide.” On my drive home, I saw a bumper sticker with the words “No one is illegal on stolen land.” I made my husband stop the car so that I could take a picture.

Katja Stuke. Fear. Nov. 2024

Diary drawing _ No.9043_ September 20th, 2024

[English translation below]

Gare à la sécurité. C’est une pièce à deux faces, voire trois.

Côté pile. Quel beau programme ! Sécurité sociale universelle. Car de l’insécurité, je, tu, il, elle souffre et souvent meurt. La femme, l’enfant, l’infirme, l’ouvrier, l’immigrant, le civil exposé à la terreur qui tue, affame, empoisonne, ensevelit, tous réclament la sécurité.  Tous ont soif de sécurité. Personne ne peut se coucher avec la certitude qu’il sera vivant demain, écrit un chroniqueur de Gaza.

Côté face. La citadelle assiégée ou son modèle réduit, la villa dans la jungle a pour premier, second et troisième souci leur propre sécurité. La villa exige de hauts grillages, jamais assez hauts. Mieux, elle doit dissuader les assaillants qui se dissimulent parmi les fourrés et les hautes branches. La sécurité des uns exige la mise en cage des autres, voire leur extermination. En hébreu, « sécurité » se dit « bitakhon ». « Barrière de sécurité » se dit en arabe « mur de l’apartheid ». A mes oreilles, les trois syllabes bi-ta-khon crachées par un bonhomme vert dans un mégaphone sonnent comme l’ouverture de la chasse.  

La sécurité pour tous, grands et petits, porte un nom, la paix dans le droit, dans la justice. Cette paix-là, le fort l’écarte avec dédain. Il n’aura jamais assez de garanties, d’assurances, dit-il. Le vrai : il n’entend pas donner de garanties au faible. Pas question de poser des bornes à sa puissance. « J’ai bien le droit », dit-il, au mépris du droit.

La sécurité des uns n’est pas celle des autres. Étendard de la réaction. Tenants de l’ordre établi contre subversifs. Sécurité des investissements, sécurité du propriétaire, sécurité des institutions. Caméras de sécurité, agents de sécurité, prisons de haute sécurité, forces de l’ordre, murailles et barbelés, patrouilles en mer. A ce jeu, le dictateur a toujours une longueur d’avance. Il fait mieux qu’assurer la sécurité, il l’impose. A son bénéfice exclusif.

Il y aurait une fois. Sécurité de la rue qu’on emprunte à la nuit tombée, de la route qu’on traverse, de ce qu’on mange, boit, respire. Sécurité de la terre nourricière. Sécurité pour ceux qui ont soif, qui ont faim, qui vivent dans des logements insalubres ou pas de logement du tout, qui traversent les mers et les continents.

Et puis la sécurité des paroles que l’on confie, des bras où l’on se blottit.

Beware of security. It’s a two-sided, or even a three-sided coin.

Tails side. What a great programme! Universal social security. Because of insecurity, I, you, he, she suffers and often dies. Women, children, the disabled, workers, immigrants, civilians exposed to the terror that kills, starves, poisons and buries – they all want security.  They all thirst for security. No one can go to bed with the certainty that they will be alive in the morning’, writes a Gaza columnist.

The opposite side. The first, second and third concern of the besieged citadel or its reduced model, the villa in the jungle, is its own safety. The villa requires high fences, never high enough. Better yet, it must dissuade attackers who hide among the thickets and high branches. The security of some requires the caging of others, even their extermination. In Hebrew, ‘security’ is called ‘bitakhon’. ‘Security fence’ is Arabic for “apartheid wall”. To my ears, the three syllables bi-ta-khon shouted by a green man into a megaphone sound like the opening of the hunt. 

Security for all, young and old, has a name: peace based on law and justice. The strong dismiss this peace with disdain. He’ll never have enough guarantees, enough assurances, he says. The truth is that he has no intention of giving guarantees to the weak. There is no intention of placing limits on his power. ‘I have the right’, he says, in defiance of the law.

The security of some is not the security of others. Standard of reaction. Defenders of the established order versus the subversive. Investment security, owner security, institutional security. Security cameras, security guards, high-security prisons, forces of law and order, walls and barbed wire, patrols at sea. At this game, the dictator is always one step ahead. He does more than ensure security, he imposes it. To his exclusive benefit.

There would be a time. Security of the street you walk down at nightfall, of the road you cross, of what you eat, drink and breathe. Security in the soil that nourishes us all. Security for those who are thirsty, hungry, living in substandard housing or no housing at all, for those who cross seas and continents.

And then the security of the words we confide, the arms in which we cuddle.

Gare à la sécurité. C’est une pièce à deux faces, voire trois.

Côté pile. Quel beau programme ! Sécurité sociale universelle. Car de l’insécurité, je, tu, il, elle souffre et souvent meurt. La femme, l’enfant, l’infirme, l’ouvrier, l’immigrant, le civil exposé à la terreur qui tue, affame, empoisonne, ensevelit, tous réclament la sécurité.  Tous ont soif de sécurité. Personne ne peut se coucher avec la certitude qu’il sera vivant demain, écrit un chroniqueur de Gaza.

Côté face. La citadelle assiégée ou son modèle réduit, la villa dans la jungle a pour premier, second et troisième souci leur propre sécurité. La villa exige de hauts grillages, jamais assez hauts. Mieux, elle doit dissuader les assaillants qui se dissimulent parmi les fourrés et les hautes branches. La sécurité des uns exige la mise en cage des autres, voire leur extermination. En hébreu, « sécurité » se dit « bitakhon ». « Barrière de sécurité » se dit en arabe « mur de l’apartheid ». A mes oreilles, les trois syllabes bi-ta-khon crachées par un bonhomme vert dans un mégaphone sonnent comme l’ouverture de la chasse.  

La sécurité pour tous, grands et petits, porte un nom, la paix dans le droit, dans la justice. Cette paix-là, le fort l’écarte avec dédain. Il n’aura jamais assez de garanties, d’assurances, dit-il. Le vrai : il n’entend pas donner de garanties au faible. Pas question de poser des bornes à sa puissance. « J’ai bien le droit », dit-il, au mépris du droit.

La sécurité des uns n’est pas celle des autres. Étendard de la réaction. Tenants de l’ordre établi contre subversifs. Sécurité des investissements, sécurité du propriétaire, sécurité des institutions. Caméras de sécurité, agents de sécurité, prisons de haute sécurité, forces de l’ordre, murailles et barbelés, patrouilles en mer. A ce jeu, le dictateur a toujours une longueur d’avance. Il fait mieux qu’assurer la sécurité, il l’impose. A son bénéfice exclusif.

Il y aurait une fois. Sécurité de la rue qu’on emprunte à la nuit tombée, de la route qu’on traverse, de ce qu’on mange, boit, respire. Sécurité de la terre nourricière. Sécurité pour ceux qui ont soif, qui ont faim, qui vivent dans des logements insalubres ou pas de logement du tout, qui traversent les mers et les continents.

Et puis la sécurité des paroles que l’on confie, des bras où l’on se blottit.

Simon Fieschi est mort le 17 octobre à 40 ans. Il était le webmaster du journal satirique français Charlie Hebdo quand les terroristes sont venus tuer tous les dessinateurs le 7 janvier 2015. Il a pris la première balle tirée en pleine colonne vertébrale et a résisté  dix ans. Il s’est confronté avec humour et rage aux terroristes pendant les procès et était toujours aux côtés des victimes d’attentats. Je l’ai connu enfant. Puis grand, puis grand handicapé survivant.

Simon Fieschi  died on October 17, 2024 at the age of 40. He was the webmaster of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo when the terrorists came to kill all the cartoonists on January 7, 2015. He took the first bullet fired into his spine and resisted for ten years. He confronted the terrorists with humor and rage during the trials and was always by the side of the victims of attacks. I knew him as a child. Then as a grown-up, then as a disabled survivor.

Photography, 2024

Katja Stuke from the series CCTV, Toronto 2005

diary drawing _ Nr.8372_ December 12th, 2021

Tallin, Estonie 2024
What was left behind and what lies ahead, Tallin, Estonia 2024

The sculpture, ‘Wings’, commemorates those who died in the anti-Communist resistance in Romania and Bessarabia between 1945 and 1989. It replaces a statue of Lenin. The ‘House of the Free Press’ was the former headquarters of ‘The Spark’ newspaper. This ideological soup of rehashed symbols and random vehicles, cosmic idols and exhaust fumes clogs the senses.

Photography, 9/2024, parc IOR, Bucarest.

One should be able to photograph the smell of this place. A park that has become a crime
scene, the scene of multiple murders. When will the trial take place? Who will represent the
victims? Poisoned trees, burnt greenery, animal habitats reduced to ashes… Speculation,
concreting, making a profit, in one of Europe’s least breathable cities.
I met there Andreea. She told me how she fights, with dance, with words, with others.
May clovers soon grow on this soil, may bare feet caress them… Parc IOR»»

I took this photo in Asheville, North Carolina 10 months ago. 2 days ago, Hurricane Helene covered the River Arts District in rain and loss as flood waters swept through low-lying areas of the mountain town. I don’t know if the sign (or the bridge) is still standing.

I purchased a home for the first time in my life last summer. Or rather, the bank that sold me a loan purchased a Craftsman style Bungalow built in 1921 in Greensboro, North Carolina and I paid a (mostly borrowed) down payment. My father always said “You need to spend money to make money” but I’ve always avoided debt and “investment” like the plague; I moved across an ocean to a country with socialized medicine, among other reasons, to avoid ever being caught in a spiral of medical debt. I’ve never owned property before, never lived anywhere for more than 10 years, never felt comfortable enough to put down roots in a place by signing (almost) everything I own on the dotted line. Now this place belongs to me (to us, I bought it with my husband), according to the deeds and the assessors and the property records books. The bank takes money out of my account monthly and will continue to do so for 30 years. Until I’m past the age of retirement. I’m supposed to feel newfound freedom as a bonafide homeowner, but mostly, I feel that weight.

Diary drawing_ No.8924_ February 7th, 2024

Whilst making this piece I thought about the values of materials and the perceived values, about fragility, permanence and impermanence, warmth and cold, use and non-use, the real monetary cost, the perceived liveliness and deadness of different materials. Others thought of making sweets as a child, pouring hot sugar into boxes and of frosted mornings— a sort of memory trigger.

Inside this worn, much handled and shipped box there is crystal, optical crystal, I think I remember the code LF5 from Schott, not the glass everywhere, like windows or screens. When I began working with glass, and historically, crystal had to have 24% lead in order to call it that, it was softer to cut— now lead is banned.

To get it lying there like a glove matching the textures and layers, involved making a mould, from cardboard to dental alginate, then an investment mould made from ground quartz, gypsum, china clay, water, and then the glass is slowly melted inside the mould. Value or cost in labour, time, technical knowledge, manual skill, electricity, materials, studio rent, memories and finally a value in the gallery. The box and crystal now have the same status.

Katja Stuke. No title.

Dividendum 1, 2024 photography

Or pathological debt avoidance

Garder ton souffle pour refroidir ton bouillie

Ou évitement pathologique des dettes

Voice-over and subtitles to come… …

Voix off et sous-titre à venir… …

I’d gladly Pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. 

Je vous paierais volontiers mardi pour un hamburger aujourd’hui.

Champtoceaux 49, France

Head to Head Blue. Drawing ink, chalk, pencil, on paper.

“Say the words ‘I feel safe’.”
I searched for the feeling in the dark but was unable to identify it.
“ I know security and safe enough,” I answered.
I think about small rabbits in a warren, still nothing.

We arrive at Wakehurst Kew, walking and examining this Septembers seed pods and seed heads on trees and plants. The official seed bank is also here – a concrete underground space. I think about the little banks hanging on the trees. We have come to a place of safety and saving.

I remember the drawing I saved for 35 years. Then I had been thinking ‘I was in you before you were born’ about embryos holding future eggs, a weird seed bank. I wanted to feel close to feel safe.

Excerpt from the secret image bank of Jeddah Diary, Nov-Dec 2023Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Before I joined The Crown Letter, my work primarily focused on events or incidents related to my Japanese background and history. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had the opportunity to engage with women artists from Europe, South America, India, and Japan through the Crown Salon, held every Tuesday. We publish our works on the web every week. This project has significantly changed my mindset. We exchanged a wide range of views on daily life during the pandemic, current affairs, art creation, and the art scene from a woman’s perspective, and reflected these views in our thoughts. It was a new experience for me to work exclusively with women, and it was very refreshing.
While addressing feminist topics such as breast cancer, the anti-abortion movement, International Women’s Day, and women’s rights within the collective, I have searched for topics related to women that I could explore further for my own projects. In the spring of 2022, I met Sally, a Saudi Arabian painter originally from Jeddah. As our friendship and discussions deepened, I realized that the attitudes toward life of women in Japan and Saudi Arabia had many similarities. In both Europe and Asia, Saudi Arabia is primarily known for its Islamic religion, oil resources, and deserts; other aspects remain mysterious and are not well-known. Images of Saudi women are often shrouded in veils. I became interested in exploring this hidden part and creating a video work that tells the stories of women with diverse backgrounds.
In November 2023, with a grant from the Allotment Travel Award, I finally traveled to Jeddah, the second-largest city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During my three-week stay, I filmed every day. I would like to share with you an excerpt from the secret image bank that I accumulated during that time.
It is no exaggeration to say that this project is also made by my participation in The Crown Letter. I would like to thank Natacha and all of the members of this project.

Katja Stuke. No title.

C’est la 200 ème semaine que nous existons, avons ouvert une fenêtre qui ne se referme jamais. Ici c’était dans l’atelier d’Emma W. un de ces quatre étés que nous avons partagé. Garder cette fenêtre d’atelier d’artiste ouverte sur l’horizon, le monde, me permet d’y assembler les pensées infinies inestimables, les utopies infinies inestimables, les espoirs infinis inestimables, les combats infinis inestimables, les formes infinies inestimables, les sentiments infinis inestimables, les désirs infinis inestimables. Cette fenêtre est comme une page d’écriture mais aussi comme un coffre-fort ouvert, qui peut contenir & offrir tout l’infini inestimable.

This is the 200th week that we’ve existed, opened a window that never closes. Here it was in Emma W. studio, one of those four summers we shared. Keeping this artist’s studio window open to the horizon, to the world, allows me to assemble the priceless infinite thoughts, the priceless infinite utopias, the priceless infinite hopes, the priceless infinite struggles, the priceless infinite forms, the priceless infinite feelings, the priceless infinite desires. This window is like a page of writing, but also like an opened safe, that can contain & offer all the priceless infinite.

I lay down on the grass to look upwards and caught sight of swallows darting about high up above. They reminded me of all the other swallows I have watched – north, south, east and west. They fly everywhere. I love them.

Katja Stuke, Prepare. Paris 2024

single channel HD video, 2 mins 12 secs, 2024

My friend wrote to me yesterday: “Where are you my sea?”

« En-semblables», 21×29,7cm, Papercut, Adagp2024, All Rights reserved 2024.

Neringa Naujokaite Sets of Typefaces and Matrices, 2024, photography

Katja Stuke, A tree in Lwiw
Google Street View 2015
June 22, 2024

Katja Stuke Tokyo Happy Shibuya Station, Tokyo 2019
from: Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »La ville invisible«

These brown mists which invade our world, overwhelm ideals and freedoms, these brown mists which veil our continents all the way to the moon, these brown mists which are darkness of death. Have we reached the bottom of inhumanities and totalitarianism to rebuild a new world?

Diary of Eve’s Land is a video installation project encompassing 5 short films. It tells the stories of 5 Saudi women, and their daily struggles to balance the expectations of conservative society with their own personal aspirations. They are a divorced psychologist, a pediatrician, a nursing student, a manager of a startup IT company and an immigrant girl who can not go out without her father’s permission. Even though there are restrictions in all of their environments, each character describes how she thinks about her life and profession. Jeddah, the second biggest city of the country, which I visited in fall 2023, is undergoing rapid development, with new contemporary buildings appearing day by day under the stream of the government project “Saudi Vision 2030”. This stream has been improving the position of women in society and has been changing radically over the past years. Encountering them brought me continuous surprise, and I discovered unknown aspects of this country which are still hidden from our European and Asian perspective. I stayed there for 3 weeks between November and December 2023. This project has been selected by the Allotment Travel Award by a Japanese foundation in 2023. 

It was Sally who first told me about the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. I remember her telling me: 
– It comes from جدة, Jaddah, the Arabic word for “grandmother” and also this name would come from the fact that Eve, considered the grandmother of Humanity, would be buried in Jeddah. 

I met Sally in the spring of 2022, during her artist residency in Paris. Sally is a painter as well as an architect, and works for a Saudi agency on an equal footing with her male colleagues. Sally then introduced me to her friends and one of her sisters. Zeina, Asmaa, Rouaa were graphic designers, psychiatrists, … Their presence and vision of life shifted my preconceived ideas of this country. I also saw similarities with Japan, where I come from. What all these women had in common was that they came from Jeddah. 

The starting point for my artistic work is events and encounters of my personal life, my intimate life even. A conversation with Sally about marital pressures in Saudi Arabia reminds her of the similarities with Japan, particularly in terms of framed expectations about our roles and futures. 

Sally once told me that her sister didn’t want to return to Saudi Arabia. She had just obtained a PhD in psychiatry in the United States, and had a beautiful career ahead of her back home, but she felt she was too old to have any hope of finding a husband. It was a question I had also asked myself in 2013, the year I graduated from the École Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Montpellier. I replied: 

– In Japan, it’s the same thing, at 33 you’re an old maid! The best I can hope for over there is an old man or an idiot. And he would have asked me every day why I was still studying!

L’arbre noir – Black tree

Un poignard pour scier les barreaux de ta cellule, un poignard pour mettre fin à ta vie prisonnière, un poignard pour aiguiser ta révolte, un poignard pour fendre ta solitude, un poignard pour graver les jours qui passent, pour écrire, pour blesser, pour te défendre, pour crier en silence, pour donner à voir ton vrai visage, pour avouer tout le sang coulé, pour le faire couler encore, un poignard en lame de résistance.

A dagger to saw the bars of your cell, a dagger to put an end to your prisoner life, a dagger to sharpen your revolt, a dagger to break through your solitude, a dagger to engrave the days that pass, to write, to wound, to defend yourself, to scream in silence, to show your true face, to admit all the blood shed, to make it flow again, a dagger as a blade of resistance.

Katja Stuke, geography of the body 2022

oil on canvas, 58 x 56 cm, 2024

No doubt it was necessary for the whole world, for not a single part of our world to be representable for me to have the idea of ​​making a postcard. There was there, in this unique moment, a semblance of peace, of plenitude, without anyone, and at the same time a theatricality reduced to beach deckchairs representing the human horde. In front of these empty beach chairs, I wondered how many of us would still be alive this summer of 2024. So, on the back of the postcard I would have written: “Dear sky, dear mountains, dear sea, thank you for still offering us your landscape as the world burns and humanity shrinks. I am now sky, mountains, sea, sand and belong to you”.

Devant la mer devenue rose, peu de temps après la tragédie, alors que l’incendie qui a ravagé la ville de Lahaina est à peine éteint, je pense à cette phrase extraite du poème de Etel Ednan, Time : “sometimes I regret my love of splendor”. Ce n’est peut-être pas l’amour des choses splendides qui me hante, mais le désir d’apprivoiser les fantômes.

In front of the sea, which has turned pink, shortly after the tragedy, when the fire that ravaged the town of Lahaina has barely been extinguished, I think of this phrase from Etel Ednan’s poem Time: ‘sometimes I regret my love of splendor’. Perhaps it’s not the love of splendid things that haunts me, but the desire to tame ghosts.

Katja Stuke, geography of the body Osaka Street View, 2024