Einen schönen guten Abend und herzlich willkommen bei der fünften Ausgabe der Gesprächsreihe, der Diskursreihe Einspruch Wiederrede des Vereins Hashtag Publik, einem Verein zur Förderung der Kommunikation in Politik und Kultur ist nicht so bekannt. Dafür ist umso ambitionierter diese Diskursreihe, die deshalb die Nummer 5 trägt, weil es ist lange her, schon im Jahr 2017, 2018, erstmals die ersten vier Ausgaben stattgefunden haben. Ebenfalls hier im Verein Raumschiff am Pfarrplatz in Linz. Ich darf mich gleich vorweg bedanken bei Kerstin und Teresa, dass diese Kooperation wieder möglich gemacht wurde. Das ist ja jetzt eine neue Generation, die den Verein jetzt übernommen hat. Auch das hat wieder total toll geklappt. Diese Gesprächsreihe verfolgt den Anspruch, internationale, wenn man so will, globale, kritische Auseinandersetzung vor allem sehr stark aus kulturpolitischer Perspektive zu betrachten und zu erörtern und, wenn möglich, das ist natürlich von besonderem Interesse, auch Strategien davon abzuleiten. Das Themenfeld ist sehr breit, es geht sehr viel um Krisen und Konflikte. Wir erleben ja tatsächlich sehr schwierige Zeiten und ich freue mich umso mehr, dass ich heute bei dieser fünften Ausgabe am Freitag, dem 15. November, hier im Raumschiff Sherry Abraham begrüßen kann. Ich darf Sherry Abraham ganz kurz vorstellen. Sherry ist in Israel geboren, lebt seit 2006 in Wien. Wir werden von Sherry erfahren, was da so vieles an den Aktivitäten noch beinhaltet. Das Thema des heutigen Abends ist sicherlich nicht ganz einfach, aber es ist allemal wert, dass man da auch ein genaues Auge darauf wirft. Es geht um Kunst im Spannungsfeld von Konflikt und Zusammenhalt. Wir haben uns darauf geeinigt, dass wir den Abend heute so bestreiten, dass wir in englischer Sprache miteinander reden. Ich tue mein Bestes, Sherry tut sich da viel leichter als ich. Dennoch, wenn dann auch aus dem Publikum heraus Fragen auch in deutscher Sprache gestellt werden wollen, dann ist das allemal möglich. Sherry versteht Deutsch sehr gut und kann dann auch antworten. Wir haben uns als Zeitrahmen ungefähr vorgenommen, so eine Stunde und dann vielleicht noch auch hier an der Bar, da gibt es eine sehr nette, cozy Bar da drüben, dass wir dann vielleicht noch gemeinsam was trinken und noch das eine oder andere Gespräch fortführen. Ja, Sherry, it's great to have you with us here in Linz. Thank you for the invitation. I'm always happy to come to Linz. We are talking about art in the field of tension between conflict and cohesion, probably a bit difficult, but let's try it with the beginning, focusing on what happened 10 days ago. Everybody in this world is talking about it. Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States for a second time. Just to make this discussion a bit up, what do you expect personally for the upcoming four years what do you think will this world will our world get lost in in the insane brain of of the probably most powerful men of the world so first of all thank you for the invitation i'm really really looking forward to see how this conversation would be developed and maybe as well hear you. Before we came here, we were on the way walking around Linz. I said that I actually really like Linz and my first time in Linz was because I was invited to do a workshop in Maiz. So I got to know Linz through Maiz lenses lenses so that's always kind of keep a warm place my East and Linz because of that and as well working with a lot of nice people like 52 today until today I mean Trump I feel like when you drop this word is creating a lot of negative feelings in most of us. And me as trying to always look on the positive part, after one year of high conflictual living conditions, especially within within my political realm, the left, the woke, there is such a huge gap. And if I try to kind of see the positive part of that thing being elected as the president of the United States is kind of bringing us together in order to be in the same place when we are really confronting life-risking situations. I'm really feeling sorry for the people that live in the United States. I would not like to even imagine what it means to be me with all the identities that I hold, living under that kind of a regime. And the only thing that I can expect is very similar conditions that me as an Israeli or me as a Jewish person living outside of Israel, but as well in Israel, because I was many times in Israel that year, is this constant living under instability and terror. I really imagine the worst in the next four years of all this imagination that was conceptualized in the first period, in his first cadence, kind of really being happening. And I don't even want to kind of give an example because I think my examples would be even minor to what would really happen. I am living in different places in Europe, but as well living in Austria, I think I got kind of comfortable understanding myself in a public space, understanding myself as a public person, and having much more freedom that I can imagine that is happening in the United States, especially when I'm exchanging with artists and scholars that are living in the United States. There are certain topics that you cannot teach at the universities. I was teaching in 2017 in the Academy of Fine Art, a course, and we invited someone, some artist that came from the States, and he was showing exactly all the... He was shocked that we are able to criticize the university within the university. I applied with a concept. It's not that the university say, oh, we like you, just do something. I specifically said that that's the topic that I'm going to teach, but still I had the freedom to have a half a year when I was teaching that text that taught the student of how to reflect critically on the institutions that presume to share knowledge and that's something that was 2017 for them not imaginable so I'm really afraid of what's going to happen during the first period of Donald Trump yes so I and as everybody we all know that we enter a job the first second third year we're just navigating ourself understanding who is with us who is against us and he's literally doing that who is and then he had another four years of preparation and I think that was the next four years are going to be a full revenge on everybody that maybe looked differently and some on his face, not even criticizing his politics, not even criticizing what he said. popularized figures that is produced in social media in the specific media social media would be just like uh presented to us the worst nightmares i think um but uh yeah i would not say i'm uh i'm feeling very secure because again the last year of 7th of october i me as a jewish person i don't i don't have a space that I can say I feel safe, I feel good. But I'm totally very pleased and thankful and grateful that I'm not living anywhere close to that person. on art and on artistic approaches to the most crucial themes and topics of our time. Art practices often draw attention on everyday interactions. Would you, Sherry, agree that art is also able to provide us with knowledge and better understandings regarding conflicts. Conflict is the central issue of our talk today. I mean in a sense that art can help us to better understand complex discourses which are difficult to communicate and to better understand these gray areas and ambivalences of conflict? I think art is a lot, a lot of things. And if we are specifically targeting the word conflict within art, there is two directions that we can look at it. I feel like the art is a personal journey. Me as an artist, I do art as a personal journey. So the things that I'm experiencing in my everyday life, I kind of transmit them through art. And obviously, because I am an individual person living in a society, that means that I'm a political person. I cannot, if I would live in the moon and I would not have contact with anybody and I would do art, maybe I would not be a political person, maybe. But because I'm communicating, first of all, with myself and then communicating what I communicate with myself to the others, then conflict as well comes into it. what I communicate myself with others, then conflict as well comes into it. I have a fear to say that art should be communicating or bridging conflicts because there could be a different way of interpreting art. Is whatever we see on social media, every video that we are scrolling, is it art? Maybe, maybe not, maybe yes. So that's kind of a question that I'm constantly referring with when we're talking about art that mediate conflict, mediate positions, until what kind of freedom of art can we allow ourselves when we mediate art, the presenting violent or reproducing violent or insisting of hurting other people. In our good, happy, utopian life, I would do utopian work, means I engage very much of the imagination of what happened when we overcome the conflict. So if I'm talking about an artwork that I did in 2017, again, a year or zero eins, is taking us a few years in the future and leaving racism, sexism, and anti-semitism so that's kind of a different way of creating using art as a tool to help us imagine something that is actually not so hard to get so if we are ignoring our ourself and if we're ignoring our community if you're we insisting on finding and re-enhancing conflicts, then I think we are stuck in the conflicts. When people do not have, so that's my philosophy when communicating about conflict without communicating about conflict. If we do not know how things could look like without any kind of discrimination forms, then we would not know how to kind of live it. I'm saying that because as well it's come from my personal experience. When I lived in Israel, it was unimaginable. I was living in Israel. And as you know, it's a small country with very strict borders. And everything that to leave Israel, it has to be like very drastic, like taking a plane. And then I moved to, after a couple of years, I moved to Austria. And I was driving one hour to work there, or flying one hour to work there. And one time I forgot my passport crossing the borders, and nobody cared. And I came back, it was mindblowing. It was something that me growing up 19 years, 20 years in Israel, I could understand it logically. Of course, I heard the people doing it. But the actual action of sitting on the train and moving from one border to another like nothing happened is something unimaginable. So I think that's my motivation of trying to describe this unmanageable in order for us to kind of overcome the conflicts. But in other hand, not regard to my work, I think it's important for artists that come from different places to share their conflicts in a space, for example, that international artists come to Austria and share their history, their understanding of different situation, different parts of the world. individual artists much more well or much more knowledgeable to understand my own conflict or the conflict that I'm surrounded and how it's my own privilege living in the western country is impacting other places so if we are stuck in the closed communities no matter what community we call it we we would not have any ability to understand what is a conflict because we are stuck in our little world and would not understand that whatever we do have a broader impact to much more people. And in addition, and the most important, that the knowledges that are out there all over the world can help us understand ourself and our conflicts. understand our self and our conflicts. So through arts that is communicative in a way that is aesthetically, in a way that is welcoming, encouraging the viewer to kind of engage with it as well as emotionally. For me obviously as an artist that's the best profession but that's the best form. So yeah, I hope I answered the conflict but I said conflict a couple of times. But anyway, I guess in this room here in the Raumschiff, there is some sort of a common sense that we all consider art in the sense of political art. What I want to know is we recognize a lot of crisis in our time and I want to know your point of view how can art preserve its autonomy you know what I mean? in a sense that whatever happens just regarding this case of the re-election of Donald Trump, President of the United States, there is no in-between. There is just to get into a party against him or for him and how can artists remain in their own self-confident autonomous zones i mean it's a it's a really interesting question but i'm not gonna like with trump and whatever would happen to us in the next four years, living in Austria, I think the freedom of art or my freedom of expression here in Austria is, it feels for me, and I hope it continues to stay like that, that I would be the first censoring of myself. I don't feel in Austria that I have, that I encountered with people that, or with institutions that limiting the way that I want to express my opinions and my positions. And I think Trump would not affect our situation here in Austria. I don't know what's going to happen with Germany. That's a whole different world that I'm, again, I'm not a political scientist and I'm not, I'm an artist. I do political work from my position. work from my position. But I definitely think that the freedom of speech or freedom of art has been challenged the last year after the 7th of October when we are viewing two camps, Austria and Rapide let's call it like that struggling with each other for each group with this agency and a right of existence of a struggle I would call it one I would call it pro-Palestinian and I would call it pro-Israeli but I think those things are much more complex because I'm a pro-Palestinian and I'm a pro-Israeli. There is in Israel some voices that call it the third narrative. That means that you cannot separate. There is Palestinians living in Israel and they are part of the Israeli society and it's not possible to divide that community that we call Israeli citizens. But here in Austria, I feel like that since the 7th of October, the question of censorship has become to be much more present in our everyday life. The velocity of brutality exchange in the social media especially, but as well on the streets, in demonstrations. It's something that creates me to reflect again about what it means, the freedom of art. And if we're talking about freedom of art and censorship, I thought that until the 7th of October, we as a society have ground rules that we do not cross them. And our rules as woke people, I'm just going to say it, I am a woke person. It's not a derogatory term. I am using politically correctness in order to have my life better for me and for the people that are around me. that are around me. But I think, again, since the 7th of October, I feel like I have the urge as well to censorize other people. I have the urge to say, to divide what is art for the sake of art, and what is art in the sake of propaganda. And we are, if we're doing propaganda, what are we promoting? And it feels very much that i'm being target as a jewish person as an israeli person as a white person as luckily we have a camera i don't have to say what my color but i kind of have to justify my existence because i have a certain past due to artistic expression that is, for my view, propaganda to promote radical religion movements that is outside of Austria. So it's a complex as everything that has come with freedom. The word is complex. And as well, freedom of speech is a complex. So when is the boundaries between my freedom and your freedom, and when your freedom is hurting my freedom? And again, I thought that that was already been discussed when we talked about Me Too debate, and when we talked about Black Lives Matters debate. And I thought those communication is, we are so, I thought we are so advanced of caring for each other, seeing each other with its whole complexity and not pushing people to one small category in order to attack it. since the 7th of October, it's became to be all of that amazing knowledge that we collected the last decade collapsed. And the first time after the 7th of October, I had to kind of stand loud and say, antisemitism is not something that happened in the past. Antisemitism is something that is happening now. And-semitism never left Austria unfortunately and anti-semitism is not something that was imported it was here and it's here and it's so clearly everywhere here in just a different custom in it just a different it's not a print media it's a social media that promotes radical ideas. And the Jews are the first in line. I was very impressed because two days ago the daily newspaper, the well-known daily newspaper Die Presse, published a portrait of you. I don't know, about one page. Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot of attention for you. I'm sorry. But this article was coming up with the title, I actually do not understand the wokeness of my colleagues. Yeah. It refers to all your experiences over the last 10 years, or even more than that. The first time when you came to your university, it was the University of Fine Arts, when you were courageous enough to criticize an article due to, as you thought, its anti-semitism, and your professor has declined this sort of critique, and then you experienced, as you stated in this article, in this portrait, you experienced this interesting lack of solidarity of other students. Can you tell us more about that? I really love the project. Daniel Scheket and Robert, that I forgot the name, was initiating it. And it was two years ago, so before the 7th of October. And my friends know that I, it's not that I was not communicating about my identity as being a Jew as well. My diploma was regarding to that. But I thought that my work is revolve working class. I thought that that's, for me as a political person, as an artist, political artist, my most urgency I felt is driving from a class struggle and that was mainly my focus. And I thought that antisemitism is really important to communicate, but it's really important to communicate about something that happened in the past. And I, again and again, stating my mistake and sharing it in every place that I have the opportunity to apologize to my colleagues. And then when Daniel asked me, I was like, okay, let's, yeah, okay. I have the story and my diploma was about it. And I, you know, I promised myself that that work would be in the academy. We call it in the art world, site-specific work. It was a specific time and a specific moment. And it was not a work that i wanted to travel or to continue because um the story started when i entered the academy and i was overwhelmed from knowledge i was could not believe that i reach uh that kind of I could not believe that I reached that kind of very elitarian space. When we were sitting, we had huge rooms, sitting in couches, smoking, drinking wine, having the ability to cook in between, reading texts of all these amazing people, and everybody was engaged. I hardly spoke English. I hardly understood what everybody's talking about. But I had friends like Marisa Lobo as well was in my East that was insisting that I actually understand. So in our talks, she kind of made this connection from what I was sharing in my language. I'm calling a language of Oregon class to what we read in the theory. So it was mind-blowing. We were really connected emotionally, physically, spiritually, and we did a lot of projects together. So it was like the first two years, I could not believe that I found myself in that kind of space that we're constantly debating and we're constantly talking. I'm a head person. constantly debating and we're constantly talking. I'm a head person. Then we kind of created a book project. Again, we are an art university, so that class was specifically very political, theoretical, political, activist class. And we found a text that kind of broke all of that crumble everything together so the text from Mignolo Valter Mignolo was performing a very clear antisemitism and when we brought this critique to the professor, we got many different reactions. And we debated. We continued debating for one year about what to do with that, how we can join, how can we proceed with the book projects because all the texts were amazing. A lot of very important, smart people from Europe, but the Americas were contributing their text. And the reaction was very defensive. And the reaction was that defensive that in a few months going, and we are still discussing, that I was blamed with uh that i'm a racist that i'm criticizing um um argentinian um scholar that teach back then in harvard and i was uh blamed in um or i was i was asked to share my critique in writings so So she was saying that if I want to participate in the discourse, I have to write theory. And I took this advice and did not sleep and started to read and write and read and write. And yeah, so that was my trigger somehow to learn how to articulate myself in my first foreign language, English. It's not my mother tongue. But that was a struggle. That was a struggle because I didn't want to be silent because I could not write theory. And I didn't want to be silent because I was refused to have further communications. Many things happened after that conflict. In the end, we did publish the book. In the end, I did get punished by end we did publish the book in the end i did got punished by her of not getting the grades in it's written one semester it was two semesters i did got punished by uh being ignored my diploma was graded with like the worst grade that you can get in the academy. A text that I was in mentioned my work in a book project was censorized. But, you know, that time was very difficult. And I think that hurt me the most because this utopian notion that I had of this class, everything was questioned. Everything is possible to criticize except of her and her opinions. So that was a shock for me. Coming to this heaven, experiencing that many people are standing on both their legs and screaming against any kind of discrimination and exclusions are unable when it comes to anti-Semitism. And in my ignorance back then, I thought it's only because the professor had so much power and it's not happening outside. It's just in this academic little bubble. It's a discourse. We exaggerating things in order to put our demands forward. So we demanding for universal basic income in order to have fair loan. You know, it's kind of this kind of this is what I thought. But yeah, the 7th of October taught me know it's kind of this kind of this is what i thought but um yeah the 7th of october taught me that it's not it's not people do have their imagination that that apartheid is part of everyday life of israeli citizens that genocide is happening and it's um people think that palestine was existing before 1948 a lot of conceptions that are widely spread in social media but they have some roots in the same academia that i was participating so when i learned that that professor it is a person that has validation, it's like a professor of two universities, say there is genocide happening in Israel, then me as an 18, 19, 20, 30, 40 person question and then discuss with the person that came from there about if from the river to the sea is let's all live together happily, as if it was a slogan that was invented after the 7th of October as a solution for something, and not having the access maybe, let's just be kind, to history books that were produced in the different countries in the Middle East, from Israel, from Jordan to Syria and Lebanon and Egypt, I think none of them think that or stated that from the river to the sea is that everybody in the Middle East should live happily ever after. It is so contradicting of the history of the Middle East. Now that I'm promoting that we should be violent, my wish is that everybody would live in freedom and equality. It's two things that has to be coming together. It cannot be just freedom or just equality. But in the same time, I want to have a Jewish state. One state that people speak an indigenous language that's called Hebrew, and one little state that have ability for me to run when things are going to get shit here. And they're not comfortable. And they're getting worse. I'm wearing that here, but the minute that I am not with a... Can you explain us what it is? Sure, but I'm just going to finish my sentence. We were in the train to here and I knew that it's been shown, but I knew that I'm with you, so I came like, okay, I'm safe, but if I'm alone, I'm definitely not doing that. This is... It's a very unique symbol because it's holding to contradiction. It's what people are wearing when they go into war. Soldiers. Soldiers, people. soldiers people um and the soldiers in israel are the people of israel like people that israelis uh citizens that are serving the army are it's an art the army people people of the army i do not know um and it's written um bring them home bring them back. And for me or for the people that initiate that is kind of stating that the army, the only tasks that the army has to do is to bring the citizen back home. We all know that it's not that easy and we all know that we have a difficult regime in Israel that is very much I do not know how to call it in a way that it's very twisted but I still carry it because I still believe in the that's the only reason to go to war, to bring those 101 people that are mostly dead and the rest are being tortured and raped and some of them are pregnant to bring them into a safe place to their home so that's why i'm carrying that yeah unfortunately that's a moment where this sort of cut is not the best idea but nevertheless i am supposed to shift over to another, let me call it the battle zone. It's the social situation of artists. I guess that's a topic you're dealing with since a long time, very intensively. You're even part of a union, as far as I know. And highlighting this question, i remember quite well personally that in the past people often spoke of this pioneering role of artists especially during this neoliberal restructuring of society, like the pioneers going into precarity and all this. Also it's called atypisch beschäftigte and they are doing this as new sort of creative entrepreneurs. we all know how it ends up quite often in misery and poverty and what can you tell us about the situation today what conclusions are necessary now i'm not going to say universal basic income, but I just said it. So I'm from, since 2018, I'm part of the IG Bildende Kunst. And I'm lucky enough to be invited from Daniela Kovindel to participate in this working group that's called Pay the Artist Now. And I'm always telling that story that I made a huge art festival called Biotopia. Again, this notion of a state without state, without borders. And the artists that were invited shared their imagination of how that Scheinstadt would look like. After the three days festival that we got good funding from public funding, the festival went bankrupt. I was shocked until Daniela was lifting me and showing me many ways of reacting and interacting with artists, but as well with the different institutions that process, I fell in love with Daniela, first of all, how can you not? And then with Ige Birunekunst. And I joined especially to take part in the Pay the Artist Now. And for me, personally, coming from a working class, I think, I never imagined that I would do art for a living. I always knew that I'm going to do art because I always did art. I think my first time on stage, I was five years old in the village. I felt home. There was no other better place for me. And I was doing many things. I was doing visual art, I was doing performances, I was singing, I was dancing. me and I was doing many things well visual art as well performances I was singing I was dancing but it always always seems like a hobby because I grew up in a space that nobody was an artist and everybody looked at art as something that you do maybe as a hobby maybe but as well those people that maybe do it as a hobby they are a little bit like different than the rest I was okay with being different but I was as well okay of working as well I came to. I was okay with being different, but I was as well okay of working. As well, I came to Austria, I was working in the kitchen 40 hours a week and studied online courses and doing art in my free time, it's like at night. And that was okay because that's how things were. Like I was living the dream, I thought. Until I came to the academy, and then I got to know more people that are actually living fully from art. Really? I thought so, because they didn't work. I mean, I didn't get it. And then I realized, yeah, my papa had me bedside to my new mama. So I got that there is, it's a whole different class that we are talking. And I got that I'm a working class, not saying working poor. I got that. I got that there is a gap and I need to just like get over it. To get over it is not to get into the frustration. But slowly, luckily, with the education, and that's what I really appreciate about Austria, cultural field, I was able to find my way. I had many people, some of them as well sitting here that kind of gave me um a vision that there is a possibility for me as well to engage so i was going to do a little bit politic i'm going to do a little bit social artworks um and then i'm going to do as well my work and this is what i do until now but um it was unimaginable, like it's unimaginable that the sun would not, okay now we're in Austria, the sun is not really shining, but let's think about a sunny place, was not able to not imagine that the sun is shining in the summer in Austria. So therefore I think that the engagement as well with pay the artists now for me is more than just a hobby that's my literally passion I can I'm saying that I'm dividing my life between 50% I'm doing that and 50% I'm doing my little artwork I think me doing pay the artists now like the working group that I'm going to explain, I mean, what exactly it is, it's kind of a healing process for me to take away the, I'm able, no, it's not, it's my right. Like, but I constantly have to remind myself that I'm doing it. And I can continue doing it and stop being afraid of everything that I'm like, if I can spend or not. So Pay the Artist Now is a working group that was established way before I joined the IGB in the Kunz. And Daniela Kovindl as well take part in what was called Kunzengeld way before 2016. With a lot of corporations, partners or people that were working as well. IG Kultur was very much pioneering on insisting of fair payment for artists and cultural workers. And since 2017, I'm in the working group, and we managed to formulate for the fine artists a recommendation for basic payments hourly but as well basis that is according to tests and with the idea that art is not produced by privileged people to privileged people so when we are able to be paid fairly that we could leave out of our labor, I mean that the art field is much more varied. People with my background or different backgrounds are able to take part and express themselves without getting hungry. And I think that's the beauty of art that since the 90s, with post-colonial ideas and a theory that we are able to look a little bit broader and understand that not everybody comes from the same um hapsburg family and not everybody has a capital earned from nazi parents not everybody have um i don't know, houses in different islands that has a colonial heritage. But people that are my grandparents from Yemen literally were nomads, came to Israel being farmers. And I'm the first generation in my family that I'm academic and sitting in this kind of setting and talking a bit high, high language. I think if my siblings would see it, they would be really amused and there's going to be one year of humor being produced about the way that I managed to act, to perform in that language. So yes, for me, Pay the Artist Now is very much a healing process. And luckily, 2021 as well, our recommendation and other Interesse Gemeinschaft recommendation was being recommended by Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, Offentliche Dienst und Sport und Ehrenamtlich, etwas habe ich vergessen, BMKÖs and as well the regional, immer so Stadt Wien, but as well in other spaces and there is a different progress in this fair payment for artists and cultural workers in different regions in Austria and after our recommendation being published, what we did the last one and a half years is went for different cities in Austria in order to encourage this discussion, in order to put that topic visible. It means we created two days of conference in Linz, in Graz, in Innsbruck and in Klagenfurt, where different people that are involved in art and culture from administrators to politicians to artists and galleries sitting together in order to reflect what is happening and how can we support each other in this process. I can continue talking about paper arts now, you need to tell me was passiert und wie wir uns in diesem Prozess unterstützen können. Ich kann weiter über Päther-Arts sprechen. Jetzt musst du mir sagen, wann es ein Punkt ist. Ich glaube, es ist nicht der richtige Zeit, die Audienz zu beantworten, wenn es Fragen oder Kommentare gibt. Wir können es auch auf Deutsch machen, weil Sherry sich gerne bereit erklärt hat, Deutsch zu verstehen. Das tut Sherry sowieso, aber dann auch sozusagen vielleicht auch auf Deutsch zu antworten oder auf Englisch. Ich kann versuchen. Gibt es irgendwie jetzt schon Anmerkungen, Kritik, Fragen, Kommentare? Wenn, dann bitte nur mit Mikrofon, sonst können wir das bei der Aufzeichnung nicht verstehen. Es sieht vorerst noch nicht so aus. lot of time on focusing on questions and discussing questions in my TV program for DorfTV, questions of global injustice. I guess that's a topic of huge interest field and I often recognize this sort of hope that let's call it this intercultural connectedness could be a way to resist repression violence and oppression over the entire world. What is your point of view, Sherry? What's about your confidence that this sort of intercultural connectedness to get more in touch with other, more exchange, can be brought about in this way. You know, that we all are well aware of border regimes, avoiding that people can get into other continents. For instance, I'm doing a lot of work in Africa. It's very, very, very difficult for African artists to come here to Austria. Are you hopeful that we can find new ways, even new sort of exchanges to find solutions, common solutions regarding all our conflicts in the world? Well, that's a big question. If I'm going to talk from my personal history, my mother was born in India, my dad in Yemen. Two different life conditions, totally different life conditions. Then they moved to Israel. A whole different life condition, the 50s in Israel was not much. There is a term in Hebrew, it's called atsena. It was really poverty space. And being, you know, coming to fulfill the role of a working class. And then, so that's two worlds clashing with, or clashing, but then, it's called the word negotiating with a new space created me. It's another third layer of a first Israeli, a Tzabar, negotiating with that space, that space that has a lot of histories. And then me coming here, I mean, me being me is multicultural happening just there, from class to ethnicity and religion. It is, so of course, it would be a bit ridiculous if I would not say that intercultural interaction is not good, because then I would not be here. But I think it's, to solve the problems of the world, I don't have much hope that it would happen ever. It was what I do hope that we are ready to be in a constant struggle. That's something that needs to be educated to be resilient. Because this is what I'm always quoting Petya Dimitrava. She was a teacher of mine in the academy. Feminism did not end in the first, second, third wave. We always have to struggle for feminism. And Trump is about to kill couple of generations. We would have to go back to the, I don't know, ice age with that regime. So if we taking something that is outside of only my body that is more connecting more people, we constantly have to be in the front line. We always have to look at the little metaphors and the artwork that is hidden in the other side and trying to hear what more people think about that in the context of art, what this artwork is doing with me and with you and with them, and how can we exchange and not cancel each other experiences in order to kind of be in the good side or be in the good side that I think that I'm a good side. So I do not have hope that things are going to be ever good. They're going to be a bit better from yesterday, because I think that it's going to be a little bit better from yesterday. But new things are going to clash in our face. Who, I'm not going to say the F, but I said the F, would imagine that Trump would be elected? Who imagined that in Germany there's not going to be a Regierung now? I'm feeling like I'm repeating myself since the 7th of October. Who imagined that something like that would happen? I did not imagine that the 7th of October would happen. I did not imagine that people that are Israeli and Jews, because there were as well non--known Jews in this group of football enthusiasts in Amsterdam, I did not imagine that something like that would happen, that people would be brutalized. I did not imagine that on the day that people were raped, still people were raped and burned in their houses, other people in the other part of the world would celebrate it and say, karma has justice. I did not imagine that. And I did not imagine that I would say to my family when I was always saying, Austria is safe. I do not know what you're doing there. I could not imagine that I would tell them, I'm sorry, I do not know what I was thinking. Because I, yeah, I said it already. So there are so many things that I did not imagine that would happen. I do believe in intercultural, but I don't believe that it starts in the older age, because in the older age there is some kind of big risk of appropriation and power dynamic I think that cultural interaction should start in a school in education system early and not when we are going to do art in India I would like to end up with a very and not when we are going to do art in India. I would like to end up with a very concrete example we were already talking about. It's your project, you're contributing the Gläserne Wand, the glass wall, an exhibition drawing attention on the problem of anti-Semitism. It's an exhibition designed for schools, for pupils. So as far as I can read it, I guess there is nevertheless some hope, even your hope, to communicate all your experience of others to young people. Yeah. Tell us more about your hope. So that's what I meant. young people are our future and the young people are the people that are the creature that we put a lot of focus but yeah I do have a strong belief in education I have done many projects with young adults, as well with Trafoka, but as well with Maiz. And there was an honest exchange, an honest questioning that I managed then to reflect on my position and then kind of come back the next day and then share my thoughts and i think you know when you see kids that are playing together no matter what they're where they come from which language they're talking my niece my two beautiful niece came a month ago to vienna and we were as well in leeds and we met with other kids friends that in Vienna, nobody understood each other. We did not understand. They understood each other very well. And I hope that we would go back to that place and let our ego and our fears and our... Some kind of imagination that back then, or if we do one, two, three, everything would be much better. But that experience of living and looking at each other with literally physically, like a body language expression, that for me it was the honest. And I think if there would be much more budgets and infrastructures to have have contemporary formats of education, because we're still living in the 19th century education systems, when that's going to be possible to reform and reconstruct, yes, I think then the question of racism and anti-Semitism and borders is not going to be anymore an issue, or Islamophobia or anti-Semitism is not going to be an issue. Because when we grow up without that, then it's really hard to adapt to it. It's really hard then later on. And when we grow up in that, it's really hard later on to unlearn that. That's an everyday task. And I do think that that's what I do as well through my art, is constantly unlearning all the structure that I grew up with. What a final word. Ich nehme das jetzt auch als Schlusswort. Ich sage vielen, vielen herzlichen Dank, Sherry Avraham, dass du aus Wien heute zu uns gekommen bist, zum Auftakt der Wiederaufnahme dieser Diskursreihe Nummer 5. Vielen Dank natürlich auch für die Aufmerksamkeit hier im Raum, im Raumschiff. Großes Dankeschön natürlich auch an die Vertreterinnen vom Raumschiff, dass sie uns das mit dem Raum hier auch wieder ermöglicht haben. Die nächste Ausgabe ist bereits in Planung. Schauen Sie im Internet beziehungsweise auch auf Social Media. Da wird der Termin als baldigst bekannt gegeben. In diesem Sinne wünsche ich noch eine sehr nachdenkliche Zeit, auch nach diesen spannenden Impulsen von Sherry Abraham. Wir haben jetzt hier noch die Möglichkeit, in kleineren Gruppen noch zusammenzutreten an der Bar. Auf alle Fälle noch einen schönen Abend und auf Wiedersehen.