Bodyless 2016
A body of work shown in a collective exhibition about (im)migration organised by KOPIN at the Maritime Museum, Birgu, Malta, 2016 and curated by Glenn Calleja.
The following text is a part of what was written for the exhibition:
"[...]
I try to imagine myself as someone who has a past, relatives and friends, possessions and ambitions, out at sea with nothing apart from the clothes I’m wearing and without any certainly that I will live to see the next day. I try to envisage myself going about life without any basic necessities, surviving with nothing. And it is difficult to feel what it’s like, because I am used to having things at hand to keep myself comfortable, clean and safe. I notice that the clothes I am wearing and the clothes the refugees are wearing are the same. I put them on to go to work or meet up with friends while they put them on to flee.
And then I start to wonder where all of us are coming from, our origins and where we are going from here. Wherever I am, indoors, in a garden, on a beach, I look around me and down at the ground and I notice the dust that is everywhere and I wonder where it is coming from. I become mindful that the air I’m breathing is also full of dust which comes from wherever, blown across the sea and from other lands and it is the same air that everyone breathes. I remind myself, as if I am being told by a voice in my head, that ‘[...] you [will] return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Genesis 3:19
[...]”
Maxine Attard
The following text is a part of what was written for the exhibition:
"[...]
I try to imagine myself as someone who has a past, relatives and friends, possessions and ambitions, out at sea with nothing apart from the clothes I’m wearing and without any certainly that I will live to see the next day. I try to envisage myself going about life without any basic necessities, surviving with nothing. And it is difficult to feel what it’s like, because I am used to having things at hand to keep myself comfortable, clean and safe. I notice that the clothes I am wearing and the clothes the refugees are wearing are the same. I put them on to go to work or meet up with friends while they put them on to flee.
And then I start to wonder where all of us are coming from, our origins and where we are going from here. Wherever I am, indoors, in a garden, on a beach, I look around me and down at the ground and I notice the dust that is everywhere and I wonder where it is coming from. I become mindful that the air I’m breathing is also full of dust which comes from wherever, blown across the sea and from other lands and it is the same air that everyone breathes. I remind myself, as if I am being told by a voice in my head, that ‘[...] you [will] return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Genesis 3:19
[...]”
Maxine Attard
