video performance
screened at X-RAY video exhibition
curated and hosted by Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz gallery, BERLIn, 2020.
© Akano Eternii
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
This is not a performance. This my life, maybe yours.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
This is my first memory of my first police contact, it may also be yours.
After church, I was running back home, I was just a child.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
I was just there. I was me. I was breathing. I was alive.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
For them, I was not a minor, I was an error.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
I relive it every time I cross the path of an officer.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Police protect your safety at the cost of your liberty.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Police is the constitutional weapon of governmental policy.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Governmental policies against me, you, the former migrant.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
The outcast, the outsider, the foreigner, the other.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
The faceless, nameless, anonymous, insignificant, the many.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Because good people just talk, never act. I am the enemy.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Many times has my head hit the ground, I thought I would die.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
How many have died? How many will die?
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Some can't take it anymore and commit suicide.
It is not a safe space. We are not safe. I'm not safe.
Legal terrorism. Casual genocide.
Breathe for the forgotten.
Breathe for you.
Breathe for those who can't.
Breathe for us.
And do not stop.
"This is our space. This is our time. This is our fight.
For all the bodies, minds and souls that don't follow the right corpus."