GROUND 0101 (The Fall Issue)

they are multiculty because
they live around a bunch of
others, but are those cultures
actually meeting? Because
in my opinion, what makes
a real melting pot is social
junction. There then one finds
out that people is colourblind
not because they are racists
or not, it is just because
in the context of a city, social
interactions are integrated
through homogenesis, I
mean; the rich is living in the
city, the poor too. Only what
we are doing can allows us to
cross those borders.
IO. In that direction lets look
at this organism through a
wider lens, and lets speak
of organisms composed of
several cities. Europe for instance,
as an organism it is
expected to have mechanism
of defence as any biological
entity has against foreign
agents that terminologically
can be described as potencial
pathological agents. I
had this reading after visiting
Xenopolis of individuals in
the cities far from the marxist
idea of social symbiosis,
in the current state of affairs
in the West, I read from the
curatorial work and your
concept for the exhibition,
that we, people in the West
function in an ambivalent behaviour,
be it antibodies and
parasites simultaneously.
SN. Understand our body as
a metaphor, it rejects things.
The city as a biological living
organism reacts in the same
way. And if we think of Europe
to this level, we should think
of Europe as a city with several
neighbourhoods. Again;
in Europe you have the rich
and the poor, and how northern
is and how southern is,
and of course then there is
England which is a world in
its own, which can just not
merge with any other…
IO. Yes, it is a special case…
SN. With no doubt, it is the
quintessence of strangeness…
But anyways, at the
same time, if one look at
London, the city appears to
be more multicultural than a
place like Paris just because
of the crossovers… I am saying;
Europe is a fiction as the
city is a fiction and a fiction
can only work when everyone
agrees with it.
IO. Finally, in the case of the
Mille-feuille metaphor, who
you consider might be the
chef?
SN. Since these cakes are
multi-layered, there are several
people living with the
illusion of becoming the
chefs of the cake, but they
can’t. That’s why in so-called
democratic places, they are
changing chef periodically.
© Mwangi Hutter, courtesy of the artists