THE HOUSE AND THE COURTYARD: THE AESTHETIC POTENTIAL OF MIGRANT CONSCIOUSNESS AND BORDER THINKING

 Ghost-like women are floating. They are undressed but not naked. Body and material construction blend, they become one – the spirit of the house. The prominence of the courtyard, particularly in Five Court Compound underlines its two crucial functions. On the one hand, it is a border space between the outside, the street, and the inside, the house. The compositions invite us – guest – to enter a space that is alien to most of us in New York.

However, on the other hand, it is a place marked by power differentials – the place were gender roles are divided. Males meet in the courtyard and women remain inside the house. In a complex structure of dependent human relations, women are in Kahraman’s art, the house. They can observe, without being observed, the courtyard from behind the Mashrabiya, the screen that divides two rooms in Kahraman’s installation.

The house is my domain. When you enter you will resign and obey. At least that’s what I have to believe if I were to survive. Indeed you can have the rest but these rooms, these kitchens, these balconies, these toilettes are mine. They are an extension of myself. And within the confines of these walls I will do what I please. I will watch you from above. Through the screens I can see everything you do and you won’t even know that I’m watching. I will laugh when you stumble and I will hear your conversations with others.

Essay by Walter D Mignolo HERE