Ich bin anders, weil ich kann das. Stranger belongs to me

Bani Abidi, EsRAP, Aziz Hazara, Lucas Odahara, Setareh Shahbazi

“Can we imagine a country we can all belong to, where citizenship is claimed through acts of love and care, where the ‘foreigner’ resides within each of us, and is that yet unknown, unfamiliar part of us, within us, that we seek to get to know? The search for knowledge requires us to welcome the stranger, and become a stranger to ourselves at the same time, in order to truly know ourselves and each other.” (Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, Borderlanders: A Political Concept for Repair)

How can we belong at once to various histories and difficult geographies that we are part of? How can we practice modes of belonging which embrace our entangled differences? Instead of being afraid of the stranger, can it enable us to build communities and homes that we need for being together in the world? The artists in the exhibition create these forms of belonging that invite longing and the inner stranger to be a crucial part of collective being.

The show Ich bin anders, weil ich kann das. Stranger belongs to me is the concluding chapter of the TAXISPALAIS trilogy on togetherness, tackling the overarching question of how we can discuss and practice discourses of multiple belongings more adequately in Western Europe.

Curated by Nina Tabassomi & Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar.

The German title from a song line by EsRAP.

Press contact: Anna Neuner, presse@taxispalais.at / T +43 512 59489404