Behind the police barricades stands a young woman veiled in bright yellow, waiting patiently. The square in front of the Danish parliament is so brightly floodlit that it could almost be midday. It is the night of the 2001 Danish elections. The politicians stream one after another into the parliament building. As Pia Kjærsgaard, chairman of the right-wing populist Danish People's Party, ascends the steps of the Danish parliament, the young woman begins to sing the Danish national anthem in a clear, penetrating voice. Nervous police officers lead her away. But how can they forbid her to sing the national anthem? The strange incident even makes it onto the evening news, where a newscaster makes the telling statement: »In front of the Danish parliament today the national anthem was sung as Pia Kjærsgaard entered the building. I can't really tell you what the symbolic meaning of this incident might be, since I don't know it myself.«
The incident is documented in a short video (»Danish Elections«) created by the »SPACECAMPAIGN«, where it is tied in with campaign statements made on TV focusing on the defense of the Danish identity against immigrants. During the election campaigns, in which even democratic parties bombarded the media with masses of xenophobic propaganda against asylum, immigration and Islam, »SPACECAMPAIGN« also conducted further happenings. Always taking center stage is Alem, a young woman veiled in yellow, who, when asked, states that she is a refugee from Somalia. The relationship of the organization to this woman, as well as her identity and the identity of the other campaign members, were deliberately left obscure – all that was officially announced was that the chador-like covering was actually an IKEA tablecloth. In the foreground of the group's activities was not their authenticity or production quality, but rather the impact they exerted on the public space. In this sense, the figure of Alem functions as an icon of backwardness, speechlessness and illiteracy, pre-molded in this image by contemporary political discourse. »SPACECAMPAIGN« works with these kinds of encoding - without clumsily satirizing them or trying violently to reverse them. Instead, racist codes are ›tested‹ in specific situations, in the course of which they begin to destabilize their own framework.
This is how it happened that Alem ended up as the subject of the photo nominated for Press Photo of the Year 2001 in Denmark. In this picture she can be seen in another campaign situation, wearing her yellow veil and standing between Pia Kjærsgaard and Danish politician Mogens Glistrup, chairman of the other anti-foreigner party, »Fremskridspartiet«. The picture orchestrates a constellation of glances. Alem tries to catch the eye of the politician, who however turns away from her, while Kjærsgaard stubbornly stares past her. Of course, no one would ever have expected that Alem of all people would show up at the »Press Photo of the Year« award ceremony. She posted herself squarely in front of the photo in which she appeared, thus causing considerable embarrassment to the photographer exhibiting the picture. On the whole, »Danish Elections« provoked an enormous media response and even triggered debates on television.
Actively exacting a public presence in this manner is a component of the group's name, »SPACECAMPAIGN«. The group campaigns for participation in the public space - in a political environment in which, as the reactions demonstrate, women like Alem are by no means part of the plan. This is even more the case now that, following the elections, the new government has drafted an aliens act based primarily on the demands of the right-wing Danish People's Party. This act stipulates a minimum age of 24 years for spouses who follow their partners to Denmark, does away with schooling in languages other than Danish, and introduces a special low-wage scale for immigrants below the standard union rate. The draft, which couples development aid with countries' acceptance of returning refugees, was presented under the cynical name »A Better Integration« - causing Stephen Smith from the British »Guardian« to ask, appalled, »whether it is discrimination or racism, or whether Copenhagen is indeed already flirting with fascism.« 1 The activities conducted by »SPACECAMPAIGN« should be viewed as a way of bringing this situation into public consciousness.
The figure of Alem was employed for the first time during events conducted by proponents of the anti-globalization movement at the 2001 EU summit in Gothenburg. Alem took part in the demonstrations there, carrying a poster in the form of an EU flag, on which, inside of the wreath of stars, was written the restriction »Whites only«. »SPACECAMPAIGN« was referring not only to the domestic Danish context, but also reflecting a much more broader political discourse, which in short might be characterized as a dialectical relationship between racist segregation and equally racist humanitarianism. The relationship between humanitarianism, development aid and racism was also highlighted in other measures, carried out this time in Berlin. In this event (»One Dollar«), documented on video, »SPACECAMPAIGN« worked with collective projections onto the person of Alem. Alem stands on a busy shopping street at Christmas time holding a bundle of dollars and tries to give dollar bills away to passersby. In vain, since most of the people walking by do not even pay any attention to her. Hardly anyone wants to accept a dollar from Alem. What becomes visible in this happening is the reversed, but usually invisible projection of the preconceived notions held by the passersby onto Alem - for them, she is an annoying and superfluous supplicant and an object of charitable assistance. This projection renders them unable to recognize that this time they themselves are being addressed as recipients of charity.
This is also the direction taken by another of the group's activities – this time in Denmark again. The figure of Alem plays a pivotal role once again, this time in the form of a line drawing portraying her in the newspaper »Politikken«, the country's major daily paper. To accompany the drawing, »SPACECAMPAIGN« wrote a realistic but apocryphal article on the humanitarian situation in Iraq - from the point of view of a Danish NGO expert who tells an emotional human interest story about the catastrophic conditions in that country. The figure of Alem, sitting on a cot and looking emaciated, serves as a fitting illustration for the story. The aim behind the fake was to point out the problematic nature of the perspective taken in the text and to pose the question of why in the western media political catastrophes are only capable of being articulated in the form of sentimental humanitarian dramas from the subjective position of western NGO experts. »We don't cry because the Iraqi woman is suffering, but because the Danish expert is crying,« according to »SPACECAMPAIGN«.
In this case as well, the group is commanding a voice in the public space. And since a person like Alem only ever appears there as an icon and projection, these projections serve as the raw material for the group's works. The yellow IKEA tablecloth that functions as a veil becomes a projection screen. What is produced in the process is reality. Political, media-made, journalistic and artistic production meld together here into a compound that is as unstable as it is indivisible, and coagulate to form reality.
Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida