Abrupt movements on the map
All travels are journeys of discovery. And all thinking is wishful thinking. The stories we tell are never completely accurate, but since they are part of us - and we change all the time, it is natural that they change with us. Shwan Dler Qaradaki's video cycle Salt Kiss is an example of this, where the long life-critical journey unfolds as a structure that can be arranged and filled with stories depending on what you currently recall. Qaradaki's use of drawings and paintings as illustrations in combination with an objective voice-over also works somewhere between literary autobiography and disturbing short film. We know immediately that this is all about breaking up.
The possibilities within video media are, as we know, almost as many as the options available in how one chooses to tell one's story. And we know of course, all of this could well have been strictly documentary, a style which would have dug in and torn up all interpersonal and political issues. But Salt Kiss has basically very little to do with asylum politics and acute reality. That represents only an external structure. Primarily, it's not even about the actual journey, but rather about the inner tracks for it. Memory. The various traumas linked to 'pack
your bags and get away'. The strange cravings that arise when one subsequently sees a photo from home - the second where the camera clicks and fuses an image of something that is irrevocably lost seconds after. And it's a given that when you look from miles and years away, at this abyss of images from a world you've left behind, they will inevitably open you right up.
This will always be dramatic, and emotionally charged. There will always be things on the road that lie far beyond the traveller's control - things that will have their own momentum and will - in retrospect - be attributed their own importance within the traveller's thoughts. The almost disturbingly objective tone in Salt Kiss acts as a corrective, this is simply what happened, told straight up, without a hint of sentimentality or emotion - although we can sense the storms beneath the seemingly calm surface. Few would remain untouched if they had to break from their nearest and dearest to submit to an unpredictable journey across half the world - no matter what the pretext may be. And very few people would tell the story afterwards without crying and screaming - humiliation at border controls, the people who passed along the way, and the echo of the mother's and father's last words ringing in my head all the way; these are what represent the components that would set the agenda for most people if they tried to explain what happened - objectively. Salt Kiss moves this reality into a
literary room, making this journey into a narrative structure, and the story moves us to a place where we can discuss how we really choose to remember things. And in the worn end, we see how imperceptibly things becomes part of our identity, and the extent to which we let these things sink into us and be a part of what we are. And thus, of course, where we are going ... where we go from here.
Tommy Olsson
All travels are journeys of discovery. And all thinking is wishful thinking. The stories we tell are never completely accurate, but since they are part of us - and we change all the time, it is natural that they change with us. Shwan Dler Qaradaki's video cycle Salt Kiss is an example of this, where the long life-critical journey unfolds as a structure that can be arranged and filled with stories depending on what you currently recall. Qaradaki's use of drawings and paintings as illustrations in combination with an objective voice-over also works somewhere between literary autobiography and disturbing short film. We know immediately that this is all about breaking up.
The possibilities within video media are, as we know, almost as many as the options available in how one chooses to tell one's story. And we know of course, all of this could well have been strictly documentary, a style which would have dug in and torn up all interpersonal and political issues. But Salt Kiss has basically very little to do with asylum politics and acute reality. That represents only an external structure. Primarily, it's not even about the actual journey, but rather about the inner tracks for it. Memory. The various traumas linked to 'pack
your bags and get away'. The strange cravings that arise when one subsequently sees a photo from home - the second where the camera clicks and fuses an image of something that is irrevocably lost seconds after. And it's a given that when you look from miles and years away, at this abyss of images from a world you've left behind, they will inevitably open you right up.
This will always be dramatic, and emotionally charged. There will always be things on the road that lie far beyond the traveller's control - things that will have their own momentum and will - in retrospect - be attributed their own importance within the traveller's thoughts. The almost disturbingly objective tone in Salt Kiss acts as a corrective, this is simply what happened, told straight up, without a hint of sentimentality or emotion - although we can sense the storms beneath the seemingly calm surface. Few would remain untouched if they had to break from their nearest and dearest to submit to an unpredictable journey across half the world - no matter what the pretext may be. And very few people would tell the story afterwards without crying and screaming - humiliation at border controls, the people who passed along the way, and the echo of the mother's and father's last words ringing in my head all the way; these are what represent the components that would set the agenda for most people if they tried to explain what happened - objectively. Salt Kiss moves this reality into a
literary room, making this journey into a narrative structure, and the story moves us to a place where we can discuss how we really choose to remember things. And in the worn end, we see how imperceptibly things becomes part of our identity, and the extent to which we let these things sink into us and be a part of what we are. And thus, of course, where we are going ... where we go from here.
Tommy Olsson
