Strangers from the middle of nowhere? Manaf Halbouni’s Monument and the politics of proximity

Abstract

In February 2017, Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni set up three upright bus wrecks at a central square of Dresden, thereby recalling a scene from the war-torn city of Aleppo, from which thousands were fleeing. The work of art, entitled Monument, was one of many controversial occasions on which emotions were mobilised in conflicts over migration. This paper deploys the concept of crafting emotional proximity and distance as a way to shift debates on whether emotions should be mobilised in conflicts over migration towards a closer engagement with how this can be done and what the ethical and political implications are. I suggest a methodological framework which combines a focus on the aesthetic, pragmatic and ethical/political aspects. By applying the approach to Monument, I argue that the material presence and physical proximity of the work of art disrupted the carefully crafted categories of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ which characterise the concept of world order held by sections of the local population and catalysed by far-right activists. So whether or not Monument contributed to crafting stronger emotional proximity with refugees, it claimed public space and exposed world views of exclusivity and inequality which may otherwise have remained below the surface.