looking for god in my backyard: 1001 interactions in a niqab
The burqa entered Yelena´s imagination some time in 2008 when it was dominating international media in the wake of the war on terror. To her, it was the ultimate garment. With time, the burqa unveiled itself as a connection to God, and it haunted Yelena´s work ever since. Yelena met Salima El Musalima in 2018 at a feminist reading group where Linda Duits was handing out her business cards to white women, but for some reason pulled back when Salima reached out for one?! Fascinated by their first encounter, Yelena interviewed Salima about her hadj to Paris and how all the churches and mosques refused to help her and she relied on generosity of strangers. In 2019, Yelena asked Salima to collaborate, because she felt that she had unresolved business with Islam as an ex-FEMEN activist (FEMEN was called out for silencing Muslim women by Feministisch Verzet). Later, Salima asked Yelena to join her interview with Wierd Duk and then Yelena sent the article to curators and they went to a few meetings with Salima. When the "burqa ban" was announced, Yelena wanted to do an action: travel to the Hague in a burqa while being naked underneath to see what she would be fined for. Yelena searched on Marktplaats but could not find any burqa´s for sale, so she made a Marktplaats ad calling out to borrow a burqa that was followed by a tweet conversation between Yelena, Wierd and Salima documenting the performance that never happened because Yelena was pregnant at the time and also did not find a burqa on time. At some point Yelena proposed to make Salima a burqa, but it did not happen until 2021! Since it was the main reason why Salima was doubting Yelena´s accountability as an artist and a friend, Yelena made Salima a niqab from silk for the Kirac Honeypot event at the Unsafe House in Amsterdam. Later, Salima did a reverse FEMEN action at the Ibh Rushd Goethe Mosque with it. However, Yelena also grew attached to this niqab as her creation. She tried it on first, and documented her interactions. And now Yelena wants to borrow it to document ¨1001 interactions in my backyard¨, because she is afraid to be seen with it in public. The burqa is calling Yelena to interact with it again, but now it feels like the Israeli/Gaza conflict for Salima. Yelena is the invader in Salima´s territory...
