WAR WALLS: Post-Traumatic Enemies
video performance by Naa Nuerkie and Beáta Szabó
crazinisT artisT studiO, pIAR, Kumasi, Ghana, 2024
Naa
was born and has been living with a condition known as strabismus,
misaligned eyes, or locally referred to as alugumi. A corrective
operation at her age would be risky, she could lose her sight. Beáta's
childhood uveitis turned into cataracts, she almost went blind. She had
an operation when she was fourteen. Since then she has been living and seeing
with an artificial lens in her left eye. The physical and psychological abuse
they both suffered during childhood and during treatment has not gone away. In
this ritual, together they intend to break the walls they created over the
years in their war with their trauma, and to be prepared for conversations
instead.
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The word, “amaurotic”
means blind. Amaurosis is partial or complete loss of vision, especially
without an externally perceptible change in the eye. In the video work, we used
a huge magnifying glass as a tool. The goal was to see inside my belly without
opening my body, for which a magnifying glass obviously cannot be a functional
device. The magnifying glass was just a symbol of the searching gaze. The
intention to open the body was indicated by invisible hand movements behind the
magnifying glass. Thanks to the camera setup and interference, my partner Csaba
Szeredi was able to take a recording that evokes an endoscopic shot. Thanks to
the magnifying glass and the camera lenses, in the end I managed to explore my
guts without opening my body.
https://youtu.be/wgObQWMxYb8
https://vimeo.com/398386741
SHOWREEL
