Imagine that you enter into an old church. Full of expectations. You know more or less what you will find there. In addition to the artwork you came to behold, you know that you will face some pillars and a pulpit, an alter and arced windows.

 

But this time you cannot even see all of this. The only things you may see, or rather sense, are two enormous golden balloons hovering above you. They hang so low that you have to bow slightly in order to walk beneath them.

 

It is overwhelming, it is powerful. And it is fascinating. They fill the whole nave of the church. As you move forward into the room, you understand that the “balloons” are not just balloons. They are shaped into something that you have seen before…. It is two chariots made for war. Tanks.

 

This art installation was first time presented at the Middle East based festival REDZONE in Beirut, May 2018. Together with Kirkelig Kulturverksted and Mawred Cultural Resource, supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this festival works for the freedom of art in the region. The social mission of the arts, as spotlight and commentator, its power and its possibility to open doors, minds and dialogues, becomes specifically significant in countries which to some degree have limited artists and their work. But even in this sacred space – a church with its symbolic weight, its history and its expression of power - an extra and very interesting dimension is added to this installation. What is power – and when and how occurs the transformation that turns it into powerlessness, where lack of hope turns into prayers? When do real chariots of war become data games, pixels and virtual elements of war, and what happens when they are filled with fresh air and covered with a symbolic color of gold? The enormous injustice that is committed against humanity through a steadily growing industry of weaponry, from which a rich, marginal elite receives a staggering profit; is it possible for us to forget about this if the golden color is pretty enough? Deep enough? Shining enough? Will the golden coins ease the Norwegian collective conscience? Because we are with no doubt also war profiteers. And the placement of the deadly machines in a church, will it be able to give the tales about abuse of power and fear other nuances and dimensions? Will the lightness and the vulnerability of this artistic work give some of the profoundness and seriousness we need to realize these truths?

 

The installation, which originally was called “Economy of Effort pays the price», is made by the Egyptian artist Mohamed Elmasry, who primarily works politically and critically to the society. The artist himself expresses this about his choice of materials and design: The concept of using tanks as a model represents the entire system of industrialization and the consequent economic policies and political conflicts at the expense of many human considerations. The tanks also represent the sovereign, political, economic, and elite approach that manipulates people and their destinies in order to find a market for them.

Kulturkirken Jakob is proud to present this installation – in cooperation with The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mawred Culture Resource المورد الثقافي, the Redzone Festival and the artist himself: Mohamed Elmasry.