SILVINA DER MEQUERDITCHIAN

ELIN KARD (EK): Why should an artist engage himself with the topic of exile?
Why would it be interesting(, necessary etc.) to make an artistic comment to the theme: exile?

SDM: Many artists are dealing now days with contemporary topics. Exile is also a very contemporary topic. For artists that work with their own identity as in my case, it would be impossible not to speak about exile/ migration and its influence.
I believe we have to differentiate between exile and migration: Exile has a strict political character. you are being persecuted by the government and there for is your physical being in danger. You exile without knowing weather you will ever be able to go back again.
This is the case of my grandparents. My grandparents were Armenian and survived the genocide that was committed by the Turks in 1914 on the Armenian people. They lost their living place and became stateless persons and were not able to go back. They kept their “naked life”.
Immigration on the other hand is more of a choice. Like for example in my case. I chose to leave Argentina and live in Germany. even though, one can still say that the dissatisfaction with the Argentinean system and the need to look for a new system where people encounter me with fewer expectations, were actually reasons who (harshly said) “forced” me to go away.
To make an artistic comment on the subject is interesting because it reflects a phenomenon that is changing the urban landscapes.
I believe that art is like the soul of the society. Confronting ourselves with this subject when we show our work confronts the people with a part of themselves.

EK: Does graphically displayed fine art enhances or diminishes the signification of the notion of exile?

SDM: Graphically visual art is a tool like many other tools. It would be incorrect to make a statement saying it is better than other communication tools. There are, of course, people which are more sensible to other forms of art.
I assume, it all depends on the public and on the quality of the artwork.

EK: What is the main connotation of the word ‘exile’ for you? Does it mean lifelong status of a refugee, of self reduction and homelessness or, on the contrary, big freedom ?

SDM: First it depends in which way we choose to use the word exile. Exile as a metaphor for “isolation”, just being away from your primary basic environment? Or exile, more in the political sense, where your origin society don’t accept you, and forces you to leave? There is a very big difference between being deported and choosing to leave and live in “exile” from your own free will.
Your feelings are depended on your ability to open yourself to the culture that gives you refuge, and depended on the “shelter” country. Is it able to integrate you (that means, for me, being accepted with your cultural contribution)?
If you accept what the new environment has to give you, you feel you discover new sides from yourself that you can develop in this interaction, then you are enriching yourself and it develops to a positive experience.

On the one hand the lost feelings are very strong but on the other hand you win a great freedom which is helping you recognizing new sides from your personality and is helping you develop a new identity.
Leaving your country, like I did when I was just 20 years old and my head was full of open possibilities I didn’t realise back then, that once you had left your country, emotionally you will never find the way back absolutely. One part of you will always be far away. Something will always be missing.
I won new freedom, but I have to learn to live and accept with my constant homesickness.

EK: Do you have any personal experience of exile?

SDM: As I mentioned before in the first question, my family survived a genocide and had to exile. As for me personally I decide to leave Buenos Aires and went to live in an “exile”, in Berlin, 17 year ago.

EK: What kind of impact has the world of globalization, that evokes people to adapt with new neighbourhoods and emerges cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, on your work?

SDM: For my family it is an important subject for already 90 years. The interest of the institutions and the people in this subject may be helping me to get a plataform to show my work.
The interaction with the people has a big influence on me. To see the work of other artists dealing with this subject opened my mind too. This way,I don’t feel alone and I can learn from the others about new strategies how to build a permeable identity that is allowing one to open itself without losing itrself.

EK: Is it necessary to leave one’s country to experience being in exile?

SDM: If it means a physical exile than – yes! And like I already said, exile is sometimes being used in a metaphoric way to express isolation.

EK: What does the word nation signifies for you? Does the nation join with concept meaning of yourself when it is dispossessed of traditional characteristics ?

SDM: This is a geographical place and a mental place that marks your way to understand the life through it’s light, sky, colours, sounds, people. Your body and your mind are like an instrument that is tuned up with the environment. It influences your way to feel, your sensibility for different things. And if it’s your birth „nation“ of course this tuning marks your life very strong, because they are basic. But I think we are able to „tune“ ourselves up in other environments.

EK: What kind of ideas and emotions evokes in you the following words:

· communication primary need
· generations base
· political violence abuse of power
· multicultural society richness
· language richness
· nomadic modus vivendi difficult
· territory – home temporary

· bound – boundless Myself
· ethnic epuration – genocide pain
· crimes against humanity – war crimes fear
· religion ambivalence


EK: Does art possess refugee-like status in the society?

For the people or for the artists?
In the time where artists were dealing with timeless issues it was like that. This is the romantic idea that some people still have. Maybe it was like that in the time of Medicis. But if you work with political and social issues you are not a refugee and your art is a place for a confrontation with feelings and some of them are very hard. You deal night and day with these subjects, maybe much more than a salesman or a clerk. Your brain doesn’t stop to think and to feel. And after all you work in the system (graphic work, documentation of your work, represent your work in institutions, scholarships, look for galleries, write concepts, etc. etc. etc.) and try to earn money and make art...
As far as I am concerned, as an artist, I don’t think that art has a refugee status.
Maybe the people look for a shelter in their lives, and think art can give them a place to enjoy beauty, freedom, crazy things, and new points of view.
I believe that in every hard feeling we experience we can discover beauty.
I observe, unfortunately, how contemporary art which is being supported by big institutions is very poor on emotions. I would like to mention for example two observations I made recently. The last “Documenta” and the “Berlin Biennale 2004”, these events, I believe, disregard the esthetical and emotional aspect.