Innocence. Isn’t that a much more interesting idea than beauty and comfort?
John Maxwell Coutzee
frontpage | Dishoek
June 3, 2023
photo courtesey of © leon riekwell
Populist politicians and critics often dismissively refer to the left's preference for 'drinking tea with terrorists' in their calls for the use of military violence against perceived threats to the ‘Western way of life.’ This discourse to promote resolute, violent action against supposed terrorists plays an important role in the current conflict in Yemen, where weapons manufactured and supplied by the West are used in a crude war effort. This war has taken the lives of tenth of thousands of civilian victims, almost all of whom remain anonymous in media and official reports.
i.d. of a shared cup of tea is amongst other things a small monument for 14year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud from Sa’na, Yemen. Raja was killed on 23 March 2018 by a CB 52 B/B cluster bomb manufactured in Jackson, Tennessee, at the Milan Army Ammunition Plant in 1977 . . .
DISTANT SUFFERING XX | i.d. of a shared cup of tea
edition #1
June – August 2021 | in LUXFER OPEN SPACE, Česká Skalice | Czech Republic
work
tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas
sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ]
sand from Česká Skalice [ Czech Republic ] plexiglass hood | 25 x 25 x 25 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 110 x 25 x 25 cm. MDF 9 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt
brass engraved text sign [ 95 x 50 mm ]
in memory of Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud [14]
† 23 March 2018 | Sa'dah – Yemen
Raja was hit by a CBU-52 B/B cluster bomb, manufactured in 1977 in the Milan Army Ammunition Plant, Jackson, West Tennessee, U.S.A.
DISTANT SUFFERING XX | i.d. of a shared cup of tea
edition #2
June 2023 | in WWII bunker in Dishoek, Zeeland
work
simple tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ] sand from Sana’a [ Yemen ]
plexiglass hood | 25 x 25 x 25 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 110 x 25 x 25 cm. MDF 9 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt
postcard mill with 100 portrait and 100 landscapes postcards front: image broken / restored tea cup in two layers of sand back: text
in memory of Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud [14] † 23 March 2018 | Sa'dah – Yemen
Raja was hit by a CBU-52 B/B cluster bomb, manufactured in 1977 in the Milan Army Ammunition Plant, Jackson, West Tennessee, U.S.A.
DISTANT SUFFERING XX | i.d. of a shared cup of tea
edition #3
Gallery Durden and Ray | Los Angeles, U.S.A.
September 16 – October 7, 2023
work
simple tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ], sand from Sana’a [ Yemen ] sand from Venice Beach / Los Angeles [ U.S.A.] the sand was composed by the sculptor Ben Jackel
plexiglass hood | 30 x 30 x 30 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 30 x 30 x 30 cm. multiplex 12 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt
QR-code linking to this catalogue
DISTANT SUFFERING XX | i.d. of a shared cup of tea
edition #4
SmithArt | Middelburg – part of INSANES, oeuvre expo by Johan de Koning
October 3, 2023 – January 4, 2024
work
tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas
sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ], sand from Sana’a [ Yemen ] sand from Venice Beach / Los Angeles [ U.S.A. ]
plexiglass hood | 25 x 25 x 25 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 110 x 25 x 25 x 25 cm. multiplex 12 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt
QR-code linking to this catalogue
photo next page | courtesey of ©2023 Bo de Jong
edition #5
Kunstverein projektraum-bahnhof25 | Kleve [ Germany ] November 11 – December 4, 2023
This edition is now part of the collection of the German sculptor Christoph Wilmsen-Wiegmann
work
tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas
sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ], sand from Sana’a [ Yemen ] sand from Venice Beach / Los Angeles [ U.S.A. ]
plexiglass hood | 25 x 25 x 25 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 110 x 25 x 25 x 25 cm. multiplex 12 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt
QR-code linking to this catalogue
personal context | content
Finding who exactly are the victims of the war in Yemen is a hell of a journey. Most often you will find groups: unnamed "families", "wedding guests" and/ or "funeral attendants", "(young) children", "bus passengers", "half the village", etc., etc.
I have literally read hundreds of UN documents. I found hardly names there. These reports also provide a picture of a huge, well-oiled, bureaucratic organization that is involved in registering war crimes. Without any consequence. One of the first names I came across was in a newspaper - the Guardian1: the 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud from Sa'na. She died by a fragmentation bomb dropped by an Americanbacked Saudi Arabian drone.
The devastating effects that dud bomblets from cluster munitions have inflicted on civilians is well documented. They have killed or injured an estimated 56,000 to 86,000 civilians since World War II. The United States alone has spent more than $ 3.4 billion on demining operations since 1993, including in countries where it released hundreds of millions of bomblets in past wars that continue to kill and maim civilians.2
In the corporate media the war in Yemen is completely absent. And as such interred as an artifact in history - an epitaph waiting for the last breath. The war in Yemen has become a
The war in Yemen has become a museum piece, as can be found in the Leiden Museum of Antiquities where I wandered as a child in the late 1950s. The brass plates spelled strange, often ineffable engraved places and names. Names . . .
From the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Aden, all cultures there have a few things in common. One of these is the mandatory drinking a glass of tea on every occasion as a sign of contact. Similarly in Yemen. I was allowed to sit down at any opportunity to drink tea. A ritual that is always taunted by the far-right when people try to do something about intercultural communication: drinking tea is sugar coating Islam terrorism.
I took my memories on those many cups of tea that I was invited to drink in Yemen as the starting point to set up a small monument for 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud from Sa'na.
1. Bethan McKernan | October 3, 2019 | A father's grief and the Made in USA bomb dropped in Yemen https://www.theguardian.com/
2. John Ismay | December 4, 2019 America’s Dark History of Killing Its Own Troops With Cluster Munitions
Magazine New York Times
Photo: ©Omer Fast | 2011
Sill from: Five Thousand Feet is the Best
justification
My ultimate thanks go first and foremost to my love, my art partner and fellow guardian of spaceCAESUUR: Willy van Houtum.
Grateful for the places they offered me:
Luxfer Open Space in 2021 in the town of Česká Skalice in the Czech Republic with its wonderful 'more than curators' Roman Rejhold and Kate Štroblová who exhibited the first edition . . .
The Foundation Bunker Stories November '44, where in June 2023 Kris van Wezel together with John Daane and Suzan van de Walle invited us to make a contribution during the annual open bunker day with the colleagues Jorieke Rottier, Dani Ploeger and leon riekwel. leon acted as curator.
This second edition contained sand from Sanna'a in Yemen, collected by Galit and delivered by Issam . . . Here we met the wonderful Uli+Dirk from bahnhof25 ik Kleve, Germany.
Carlos Beltran Arechiga invited spaceCAESUUR during our meeting at Supermarket Art Fair in 2022 in Stockholm to show works by Jorieke Rottier, Giel Louws and myself at Gallery Durden and Ray in Los Angeles, U.S. in September - October 2023.
In addition to the sand from West Kapelle and Sana'a, the third edition of the work has become complete as a simulacrum with sand from America; i.e. from Venice Beach in Los Angeles, delivered by the sculptor Ben Jackel.
The work, after three years, now has its final form; the simulacrum is complete . . . .
The 4th edition was shown at SmithArt in Middelburg – October ’23 – January ’24.
The 5th edition found a place in Kleve, Germany at Kunstverein projektraum bahnhof25, November –December 2023. I used a cup out of the first batch of tea cups for this edition.
Edition #5 is now proudly part of the collection of the German sculptor Christoph Wilmsen-Wiegmann . . .
The 6th edition was shown at the Verbeke Foundation in Kemzeke, Belgium during my winter exhibition 2024-2025. It sits in the permanent collection.
DISTANT SUFFERING | the project
Since 2013, by means of the ongoing art-series DISTANT SUFFERING, the Dutch artist Hans Overvliet investigates the role of the media in their representation of (military) violence. This, in the context of themes as perception, memory and identity formation. Overvliet uses a various range of media, symbols and codes, bringing together dichotomies like beauty and violence, refinement and brutality, the sublime and the vulgar.
As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewitness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980s. Of course these experiences resonate in DISTANT SUFFERING. So aspects of power, politics, exclusion, censorship and the connection between artist, artwork and viewer infiltrate his multifaceted conceptual oeuvre.
Martha Jager, curator Vleeshal in Middelburg about the oeuvre: The dedication to art as a relational verb is central to Overvliet's work. On the one hand, the balance between poetry and criticism is special, so that the work never becomes bitter or pedantic, while at the same time the dialogue with the viewer is actively maintained. It is a tender form of activism that moves and urges action and also continuously questions the role of art.
Elements of DISTANT SUFFERING were exhibited in the Netherlands, Belgium, Pakistan, England, Italy, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lebanon, France, Germany, the U.S.A. and Sweden.
Hans Overvliet was born in Leiden in 1952; he lives in Middelburg and works in Vlissingen, both in the province of Zeeland in the South-West of the Netherlands.
Next to his art-work he is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of the now 28-years functioning space for contemporary art: ruimteCAESUUR.
thanks . . .
Willy van Houtum, Giel Louws, Roman RejholdCZ , Kate ŠtroblováCZ , Kris van WezelBE , John Daane, Suzan van de Walle, Jorieke Rottier, Dani Ploeger, leon riekwel, IssamYE, GallitYE , Ben JackelUS , Carlos Beltran ArechigaUS , Johan de Koning, Tineke Smith, Dirk D. KnickhoffDE , Elisabeth SchinkDE , Ulrike E.W. ScholderDE , Christoph Wilmsen-WiegmannDE, Geert VerbekeBE , Marie VerbovenBE .
Financial support SBKM-Middelburg, gemeente VVlissingen, Luxfer Open SpaceCZ, Kunstverein projektraum bahnhof 25DE .
An object that tells of loss, destruction, disappearance of objects. Does not speak of itself. Tells of others. Will it include them?
Jasper Johns Quoted in Susan Sontag | On Photography
www.hansovervliet.com
curiositas@zeelandnet.nl
photo back site | courtesey of ©2023 Bo de Jong
