We Sell Reality: Look
2 April, 2022 - 3 April, 2022
On Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 April, the art collective We Sell Reality will present their production ‘Look’ in the Kunsthal Auditorium. During the opening weekend of the exhibition ‘Off the Record. Erkan Özgen’, Kunsthal visitors will be invited to look at a reality that the participants of the collective have been faced with.
Fleeing from the dangers in their own country, they arrived in a new environment that by no means offered them the security they were looking for. Without having committed a criminal offence, but simply because they did not have the right documents, they were put in detention and found themselves back at square one – still in the circle of violence and pain they longed to break free of. ‘Look’ is an animation shown in a diorama. Visitors who accept We Sell Reality’s invitation to participate forfeit the option to look away. However, We Sell Reality tells its story in such a disarming and direct way, using so much colour and energy, that no one would actually want to look away. This is a reality that concerns us all.
We Sell Reality
We Sell Reality is a socially defiant label founded by a collective. The members of this art collective arrived here as refugees and then found themselves in limbo. We Sell Reality reflects on the paradox of borders that are closed for some, while open for others. For migrants who are not wealthy and who we, in the West, find it hard or impossible to identify with, the European borders are almost impossible to cross. And these are not only the borders on the outer edges of Europe. As long as a refugee has not been granted official refugee status, this person remains restricted in every way. The position of dependence that some of them end up in as a result is made visible by We Sell Reality. The We Sell Reality team develops products and presentations aimed at offering an insight into the lives of undocumented refugees.
‘Look’ is also made possible by Framer Framed, the Rijksakademie, and vfonds (the Dutch National Foundation for Peace, Freedom and Veteran Care).
