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Can you die if you don't exist?

A durational performance about 34,361 deceased refugees

Can You Die If You Don’t Exist? is a 10.5 hour durational performance and large scale video work - where does this project intro show
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Background
Focus
Residency
Minority Rights
Performance
Facilitation

For their first UK-based residency the founding members of Deep Lab, Addie Wagenknecht and Maral Pourkazemi, were invited to lead an art piece for the inaugural York Mediale festival – an international media arts organisation which celebrates York as the UK's first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.

During the residency the group of female-identifying artists led by Addie and Maral worked through the effects of immigration policy and the visibility of refugees. “We question the legitimacy of government immigration policy and its economics, its red tape system and its privileges; its seemingly random and arbitrary laws, that hide instead a very timely, clear logic and rationale – that of capital, private interests."

Can you die if you don't exist? is a 10.5 hours durational performance and large scale video work in which artist Tamara Al-Mashouk, one of the five participants, reads out every name and no name of all the women, children, and men who died attempting to claim asylum in Europe since the early 1990s. This data was published by the Guardian in May 2018 and known as The List. It was collated by the Dutch NGO United for Intercultural Action and describes the fate of 34,361 refugees.

Focus
Residency
Minority Rights
Performance
Facilitation
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Credits
  1. A Deep Lab Residency with York Mediale

    Led by Addie Wagenknecht & Maral Pourkazemi

    Participants Alisha Fisher, Georgia Hughes, Laura Kriefman, Marta Di Francesco & Tamara Al Mashouk

    Performance by Tamara Al Mashouk

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