Didem Pekün with KHORA

Imagine a dimly lit conference room, sparsely furnished. A group of men have gathered around a table for a never-ending meeting. They argue and pass on important messages to this or that higher-ranking official, but never manage to make any decisions. Disturbed Earth is a theatrical performance commissioned especially for the biennial that takes the 1995 Srebrenica genocide as its starting point for a biting reflection on bureaucracy’s failure to act when faced with a crisis.

“Disturbed Earth” is a term employed by the analysts of the US Security Council to describe the mass graves visible on aerial photographs of the landscape around Srebrenica. The genocide could have been prevented. International forces were informed, yet did not intervene, paralysed as they were by the unending back and forth of bureaucratic protocol. Consequently, refugees seeking protection in the UN’s camps were handed over to certain death at the hands of their perpetrators. Disturbed Earth addresses the frightening contradiction that the UN, set up to secure peace through the rule of law, failed to serve justice because the law’s slow decision-making process prevented timely intervention.

The work consists of a film and spatial alterations in the gallery space developed in collaboration with architect-designers Aslihan Demirtaş and Ali Cindoruk (KHORA). Drawings on floors and walls of Luleå konsthall are abstract representations of the interior spaces of each cinematic scene. They signify the sharp and decisive detachment of the bureaucratic space from the realities of the field where atrocities unfold and crime scene conditions set in. The lines are dispersed into the whole installation space much like how these self-isolating bureaucratic spaces are globally distributed.

Didem Pekün (b. 1978, Istanbul) is a filmmaker and academic based in Berlin and Istanbul.

Credits

A film by Didem Pekün
Co - Producers ⎜ Çiğdem Mater & Maria Thalia Carras & Mustafa Dok
Associate Producer ⎜Paris Helene Furst
Line producer ⎜ Dilara Çatak
Cast ⎜Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey - Herold Vomeer - Jörg Witte - Michael Davies - Mehmet Yılmaz - Philipp Leinenbach
Scriptwriters ⎜ Barış Uygur & Deniz Arslan with Paris Helene Furst
Cinematographer ⎜ Petros Nousias
Editor ⎜ Eytan İpeker
Sound recordist and sound mixer ⎜Melih Sarıgöl
Gaffer ⎜ Karam Ghossein
Grip ⎜ Sven Brinkmann

Music
Again (after ecclesiastes)
Text by David Lang (after Ecclesiastes)
small chorus SATBsssfor non commercial purposes and will ask the kind permission of David Lang

Camera assistant ⎜ Canan Kadana
Production assistant ⎜ Fritz Laszlo Weber & Leticia Quiros Gontalez
Make-up artist ⎜Joaqim Bezerra
Intern ⎜Birim Zirek
Catering ⎜Al Nafetha
Spatial design consultant ⎜ KHORA (Aslıhan Demirtaş & Ali Cindoruk)
Special thanks ⎜ Thomas Arslan - Thomas Scheffer - Jan Verwoert - Nick Aikens - Emily Fahlen & Asrin Haidari

This project could not have been realized without research Didem Pekün conducted in the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest, where Pekün conducted research on David Rohde’s archival collection leading to his book “Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica: Europe's Worst Massacre Since World War II”.

Thanks to
ZK/U
SAHA
ffai
Graduertenschule, UdK

Work

Disturbed Earth, Work in Progress 2020
HD Video and spatial drawings

Location

Luleå konsthall
21.11–14.2