DISTANT SUFFERING LVI
i.d. of a shared hourglass
in loving memory of Abu Bashir 2019 – May 12, 2025
What’s the best thing that ever happened to you? my mind asked me long ago. I said, Learning that you are not me.
Andrea Gibson
The mind is a cage. Here's the key ( 2015 )
cover page stills from the video by ©Myuz Ahmed, Gaza, July 27, 2025
www.hansovervliet.com
Work
cotton pouches with wholes caused by pistol xx-209
30 kg rice, pouring over a 24” TV-screen with a video, courtesy by ©Myuz Ahmed, July 27, 2025, Gaza Strip, edited to black and white
Monzana Storage Rack Bookcase, 5 Shelves. 135,5 x 58 x 27 cm
Video of the pouring of the rice
July 27 – August 30, 2025
Video of the pouring
August 27, 2025
Support Myoz
You can support Myuz Ahmed in his work with traumatised children in his Children's Psychological Support Center: http://paypal.me/myuzgaza123 | https://gofund.me/6c7692e9
Grandfather Visser
Daily I receive one or more videos from my Gazan friend and colleague Myuz Ahmed. Myuz works in the Strip with traumatised children. In addition, every day he sends out his videos in which he simply shows what remains of his world by walking down of what is left of his beloved habitat. His images pile up in my head with all the other horrors of that day. Of course it does not leave me unmoved, but it does not overwhelm me either.
Until 26 July. A reel of just under seven seconds. I see a bearded man crouching down, scraping something out of the sand and putting that something in a brown paper bag.
For a moment, I manage to convince myself that I am not seeing what I’m seeing. That this is not a man trying to extract the last remnants of some spilled rice from the sand for his starving family somewhere in a tent. After a few seconds, my defences collapse and I realise what I am seeing. Suddenly, my grandfather's history becomes a full-colour reality. I see him returning tired and emaciated from a trip in winter 1944 from Leiden beyond Haarlem. To the polders where his family originated from. He has hung two panniers on his bicycle – indeed with wooden tyres – containing some potatoes and vegetables to feed his family.
toes and vegetables to feed his family. As he returns at the Morspoort, he is stopped by four German soldiers and forced to throw his hard-earned belongings into the canal - the Morssingel. I would like to point out that my grandfather did not tell this story to vent his hatred for the Nazis: he always added that “we” would never resort to such practices. As a child, he made me promise that solemnly; I will never forget the look in his eyes when he said that. Watching the man in the video endlessly, I hear Grandfathers Vissers’ voice, I feel his anger, his powerlessness, the sadness, the humiliation, the defeat. The sadness about the man in the video is now hitting me hard and will completely paralyse me for a few days. Because we had solemnly promised my Grandpa that completely paralyse me for a few days. Because we had solemnly promised my Grandpa that “we” would never let it come to this again. That “we” had drawn up international laws in accordance with the Magna Carta Libertatum from 1215, established the U.N., installed the I.C.C. (in The Hague of all places!) as the successor to the Nuremberg trials, we set up the Geneva Conventions (Article 47!) etc., etc. Never again exclamation mark. And yet: the man in the video was forcedtoperformthesamehumiliating and life-threatening act my grandfatherVisserwasforcedtodointheextreme cold winter of 1944. “We” have lost badly . . .
For Abu Bashir (2019 – May 12, 2025) a friend I never got to know . . .
Ahmed & Abu Bashir 2025, Gaza
Myuz
Thanks to
Muyz Ahmed for the video (26/07/’25 – Gaza )
Willy van Houtum for her critique on the first draft
Jochem Westratate
Video’s
Black&white video Muyz Ahmed
Recording & editing stop motion
Bo de Jong rice pouches
leon rierwell pistol
DISTANT SUFFERING | the project
Martha Jager, curator Vleeshal in MiddelburgNL about the oeuvre (2023) after a studio visit:
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, in that the work never becomes bitter or pedantic, while at the same time the dialogue with the viewer is actively maintained.
Hans’ arwork is a tender form of activism that moves and urges action and also continuously questions the role of art.
