Theresa George (*1984) is a film anthropologist based in Hamburg. From 2005 to 2013, she studied cultural anthropology, journalism and political science in Leipzig. Since then, she has co-developed films and videos in changing constellations, works for film festivals, curates her own programmes and teaches visual anthropology.  


Paradise (2019)
Dramaturgy
©  Foto by Kampnagel Hamburg
©  Foto by Theresa George
©  Videostill from Paradise by Leyla Yenirce and Mazlum Nergiz

“In 1996 at 23 years of age, Zeynep Kınacı (codename: Zilan) straps explosives around her stomach in the Tunceli (Dersim) region. Disguised as a pregnant woman, she tears herself and seven Turkish soldiers to death. On this day, she goes down in history as the first Kurdish suicide bomber. The photograph of her as a martyr spreads quickly. People return her gaze countless times and her act becomes the most important symbol of female militancy for the Kurdish freedom movement. ‘To become like Zilan’ (turkish: Zilan’laşmak) became what other Kurdish female fighters also aspired to from this time on.

However, Zilan’s message is not solely directed against her Turkish oppressors. It is an expression of a courageous and contradictory emancipation movement that starts in the patriarchal and militant context of the Kurdish liberation movement of the 1970s. The current conflict zones can be traced back to exactly this time. Zilan’s message is radical and universal. She tells us: Women are not always understanding. They can resist. They can become killers if necessary. Zilan blows up the construct of gender: from now on, it's a matter of overcoming the body. The hope of never-ending glory is beckoning when the body itself is the only bargaining chip to bring about this reality.

The martyr is beyond our experience. What we are left with is a before and an after. A hesitation perhaps and an aesthetics of worship. This context unfolds in PARADISE. On five screens, Nergiz and Yenirce depict the varied processes of a cross-genre deification that can only take place through viewing. Fleecy clouds pass through monochrome skies; the fallen stand in front of the greenscreen ready to be processed into excessive TV spirals. Yet the presence of beautiful and proud female martyrs indicates the absence of the wounded, the disfigured, the old and the emaciated. The media paradise requires glamour and exceptionality. The exhausting reality of war does not quite achieve the same effect. Instead, Anna Campbell – a young British woman who died in Afrin in 2018 for a free Kurdistan – becomes the star everyone so longed for, a star which also finds fans in Europe. Thus, the war spreads across continents and reaches those who are elsewhere, both relatives within the Kurdish diaspora and beyond. A vast resonance space spans in between in which the sound of war echoes and the Kurdish mountains appear as a pixellated landscape on the monitors.” (Theresa George, accompanying booklet)
Five-channel video and sound installationby Leyla Yenirce and Mazlum Nergiz, color, 21:30 min

Karl H. Ditze Preis HfbK Hamburg; Playground Art Prize, Galerie von&von