Raeda Sa'adeh (Palestine)

‘My work has a recurrent theme: women in a permanent state of colonisation. This colonisation has many different facettes: a wall of concrete, a checkpoint, a curfew – or the face of a child, a home, a language, cultural expecations.’ In all her works, Raeda Sa’adeh challenges the norms of a society colonised by patriarchy, as when she goes to work as a woman shoe-shine in Kairo, transgressing all taboes and triggering heated discussions throughout the district, or when she poses as a passive-precious object. Or when she simply stands there, her suitcase in her hand, ready to depart – except for the fact that her left foot is stuck in a concrete block.

She has developed a new commissioned work for the House of World Cultures as a commentary on everyday reality. It deals with walls like those that have been going up in Palestine recently – and those that left their mark on life in Germany for decades.