abandoned positions

/ Raum S4.17 / Installation / english / 14+ yrs / voluntary donation

This large-scale video installation draws on interviews and documentary footage to examine the 2003 Iraq war and its profound personal and political consequences. The starting point is a little-known chapter of international anti-war activism: the “Human Shields” campaign of early 2003. As the USA prepared to invade Iraq, several hundred peace activists traveled from London to Baghdad in red double-decker buses. They positioned themselves at civilian infrastructure sites in order to shield them with their bodies. The activists assumed that the US and its allies would shy away from the media outcry caused by images of Western citizens being killed.

In the interviews with the peace activists as well as Iraqis and US soldiers who were stationed in Iraq, different, sometimes contradictory perspectives are given space. The statements, which stand side by side without commentary, convey the personal memories and questions of those involved, which continue to this day. The focus is on topics that are also becoming virulent in Germany as a result of the Bundeswehr’s deployments abroad and the current debate on rearmament: war trauma, substance abuse and homelessness among veterans, flight and displacement, toxic masculinity, racism and classism, the unequal value of life, war crimes, propaganda and censorship, as well as international solidarity.

Sebastian Hirn and Lisa Hörstmann began their artistic collaboration in 2012 and have since shown projects at various venues such as the municipal art space MaximiliansForum, Kunsthalle Lothringer13 and Kunstraum München, Ballhaus Ost and Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin, Tabacalera in Madrid, Kunstraum Nestroyhof in Vienna and Pidgin Palace Arts in Tucson, Arizona. Sebastian Hirn works at the interface of visual art, performing arts and music. He has realized numerous works in the fields of installation, theater, opera, dance, stage design and video in Austria and abroad. Lisa Hörstmann holds a doctorate in art history and is a curator specializing in South African modernism. Together they were artists-in-residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico and at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska.

Photos: Fotos: Sebastian Hirn + Lisa Hörstmann