“Wherever people feel safe (…) they will be indifferent.”
― Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
The fourth and (so far) final installment of Safe Distance, originates from online footage of war-torn areas. It was inspired by the imagery appearing online following the destruction of ancient structures in Palmyra in 2015. The violation of the perceived sacrosanctity of world heritage sites caused an outrage seemingly out of proportion compared to the human suffering also being inflicted.
Similar images, however, can be found all over the Internet; for this series I used the images of an airport in Gaza destroyed in 2001 by the Israeli army.
I guess, Safe Distance: Ruins, tries to find some comfort in the fact, that although the destruction of our shared heritage is reprehensible, there’s no chance we’ll run out of ruins anytime soon …
The series, Safe Distance, is an attempt to interpret the original footage as well as to question the position of the viewer: What is my role in the events that I so eagerly observe from a safe distance?
