Istanbul Queer Art Collective
Title: semiotics 2
Duration: 4 min 45 sec
Year: 2021
Weed is an invader
Weed is a terrorist
Weed respects neither border nor boundaries.
The precious order you go to so much pain to impose
on your patch of personal heaven,
the garden of eden, with you as the God,
appropriating plants from all over the world.
Weed is a migrant
Weed is a refugee
It comes uninvited, unauthorised, unwanted
over your fences to settle as if this was its very own soil
Digesting every nutrient that was meant for your own plants
Your very own plants, that you planted with your very own hands
And these foreigners, these nobodies that come out of nowhere
snatch your babies’ food and livelihood and strangle them in their sleep
Do not let them
Do not for a second be fooled
that they too might have colourful flowers and alluring scents,
a nice way of moving in the breeze
A will to live that you might think adorable
No! it is either you or them
Your babies or these invaders
Do not be shy
Do not be kind
Kill them, kill them all.
Bio Istanbul Queer Art Collective was founded in 2012 to engage in live art, with a view that the documentation of performance is an art form in itself. The collective is currently based in London and is comprised of its two founding members Tuna Erdem and Seda Ergul, who are firm believers in what Jack Halberstam calls the “queer art of failure” and what Renate Lorenz calls “radical drag”. Their performances range from the durational to the intimate and can morph towards other forms like sound art or installation.