PALM TREES OF IRAQ #17
2015
3 serigraphs on paper (C, M, K)
100 x 70 cm each

Found photographs of palms in Iraq provide the basis for a series of handmade silk screen prints. The palm as a symbol has an identity-producing significance in Iraq.
After the allied troops allowed the clear-cutting of countless palm plantations, it became a symbolic image for the injuries Iraq suffered at the hands of military occupation. In contrast to this stands our westernised perception of the palm as a romantic motif of the South-Pacific.
These silk screens appear fragile and incomplete due to their raw scanning and because some only consist of one or two paint layers, instead of usual four. In interplay with each other the prints may appear like an approach to a motif, through which they pose questions about the representability of the motif: What can be seen on them in general? How is a motif connoted in a cultural context and what do we project into it? Based on found photographs, these prints depict more a retraction or a critical questioning.