Paul Kuipers

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New World Embassy: Kurdistan

(Project by Jonas Staal)

Installation / Embassy

New World Embassy: Kurdistan
by Jonas Staal

New World Embassy: Kurdistan is a project by Nilüfer Koç of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) and artist Jonas Staal, which took the form of a large-scale installation that operated for two consecutive days as an alternative embassy for the Kurdish peoples, which today find themselves under occupation of four different nation-states: Bakûr (North-Kurdistan, Turkey), Rojhilat (East-Kurdistan, Iran), Başȗr (South-Kurdistan, Iraq) and Rojava (West- Kurdistan, Syria).

The separation of historical Kurdistan can be traced back, in part, to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that was signed in Switzerland, which granted a majority of the Kurdish homeland to modern Turkey. Erecting this “stateless embassy” in Lausanne confronted this historical injustice one hundred years later, but also represented the alternative ideas of self-determination the Kurdish peoples developed in response to their occupation and separation. Revolutionary Abdullah Öcalan’s vision of a ‘stateless democracy’ for example, that critiques the patriarchal, nationalist and capitalist mentality of statehood, is today being practiced across different parts of Kurdistan, and can be considered an essential alternative to the crises of the interstate system.Just as the Kurds have envisioned a ‘stateless democracy’ so this embassy operated as a ‘stateless embassy.’ It prioritized people’s diplomacy—cultural diplomacy—over state diplomacy, and gathered representatives from the different parts of Kurdistan, together with progressive politicians, Indigenous peoples, solidarity movements and cultural workers of all kinds. Together they discussed and imagined with the public what it means to separate the practice of democracy from the state, the meaning of stateless decoloniality, the necessity of cultures of solidarity, and the possibility and practice of stateless world democracy.

Colophon

Project | New World Embassy: Kurdistan
Concept | Jonas Staal
Commisioned by | Studio Jonas Staal
Type | Installation / Embassy
Date | September 23–24, 2023
Location | Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
Architecture | Paul Kuipers
Visual Identity | Remco van Bladel
Production Coordinator | Veerle Driessen and Nadine Gouders
Construction | Team Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
Photography (top) | Ruben Hamelink



















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