Displacement

A print by Emma Fineman.

Born in Berkley, CA, Emma is a London-based artist.

"In my work Displacement I was thinking a lot about this idea of lingering home. I am curious about the ways in which we carry places with us. Notions of “displacement” and the psychological experience of holding a place within ourselves long after we have left that area. In archeology there is a notion that when an object is unearthed, it is removed from its matrix, and this act of removal can never be undone. The object can no longer be “put back” unchanged and in some ways a part of the object's former identity is destroyed. I am interested in what happens to the body during periods of displacement and the lingering effects that this enacts on memory and our ability to ‘assimilate.’

My great grand father was from a place called Slonim, a boarder town located between Kyiv (then Kiev) and Bialystok in Poland. My family fled the country during the time of the Russian revolution due to rising antisemitism in the area. They used to have a turpentine factory that was burned down twice in acts of antisemitic violence towards them and their business. After that they decided it was time to leave. They tossed a coin and ended up moving to America, if it were tails, they’d have gone to Germany, and I very likely would have never been born. My family likely would have died in the war. I’ve been thinking a lot about this act of upheaval, especially now during the current crisis in Ukraine. Learning of the bombing of Kyiv and the total destruction throughout the country has been devastating, and I cannot even imagine the trauma of living through that kind of extreme violence. There is an enduring haunting about my familial past there. We never went back, lost all ties, in yet there is still a lingering bond to those names, the towns, the city streets that I’d heard of my whole life. A lingering of place. And now during this time, a new generation of families will be displaced, forced to leave their homes and lives they have built there, and after all the chaos and destruction what will they have to return to?

I am grateful for the opportunity to support the Ukrainian people and anyone trapped in the war-torn state. My hope is that the language of racism and hatred that forced my family to leave all those years ago is finally addressed now. I have seen a lot on the European media coverage of the situation that reveals a deep rooted racism. That because they are "white" and “civilized” and “European” they deserve our care and our empathy, when so many other nations experiencing the same trauma have been overlooked and abandoned and mislabeled. Even the African students studying abroad in Ukraine have faced extreme racism when trying to flee. Denied their humanity. I stand in solidarity with them, with the Ukrainian people and all victims of war."

All profits from the sale of this print will be donated to World Central Kitchen.

Edition of 5.
Size: 30x20cm / 12x10in.
Print specs: Giclée prints on Hannehmuleh paper.
Sold unframed.
Printed in the UK.

Prints ship weekly on Mondays.