Garden's Illusion
Garden’s Illusion is currently a work-in-process as the result of a long conversation between Dalal Mitwally and Mouayad Abu Ammouna. They took as a starting point the speech by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, describing Europe as “a beautiful garden” that the gardeners have to protect from the “wild jungle” beyond its gates. This allegory is not detached by any means from the European psyche, rather it is one of the cornerstones of the European empire and its colonies. Situated in the garden, Dalal in Rotterdam, and outside the garden, Mouayad in Gaza, they explored through continuous WhatsApp conversations how these geographies affect our understandings of fear, death, loss, and rage.
The mural painting had a preliminary phase to gauge out the garden’s inhabitants. When the jungle is constantly facing intrusions intended for the garden’s upkeep, the question “what are you afraid of losing the most?” becomes almost like an ambush. This question was initially painted on the wall as an attempt to create a new level of interactivity. What similarities are found in these answers between the two counterparts, and how do they cope differently when facing these fears of loss? Loss of self, of loved ones, or loss of hope. The answers that the artists received were used to create a narrative poem between them that will be painted on the mural in the following days.