Seite - 174 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 4/2018

174 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 4 2o18 Charlotte Bank | Remaking a World Balancing the desire to produce politically motivated work with individual artistic projects often means stepping through a minefield of possible traps. Yet, many displaced Syrian artists have chosen to hold on to themes related to war, torture, repression and violence. Their works offer visual expressions of the collective traumas that are haunting Syrians wherever they find refuge. As has been discussed by scholars of trauma-related art, such work has the potential of assisting the process of healing. An important step towards this aim lies in the articulation of traumatic experiences, as it allows victims to gain renewed agency and lead more empowered lives as survivors by allowing for an identification with the conceptual content of the works and relate it to personal experiences.4 In her discussion of South African artists’ work related to the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Kim Miller used the Japanese concept of hibakusha to speak of the empowering significance of giving testimony. Usually employed in the context of witnesses/ survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War, a hiba- kusha is understood as a more than a witness, and rather as an empowered survivor who is giv- ing testimony to his/her experiences and reject the notion of themselves as passive victims.5 As Syrian displaced artists speak up about atrocities that all Syrians have been affected by and give voices to the victims of violence in their home country (who often cannot speak themselves), they actively take over the role of witnessing and bring testimonies onto the international cul- tural stage. Their works can produce the need among refugee communities to tell their own stories, to articulate their own traumatic experiences and thus offer an opportunity to take the first steps towards processing and, ultimately, to healing traumas.6 For the local, non-refugee audience, these works invite dialogues about the refugees’ expe- riences and might thus help foster understanding and counter hostile sentiments. Jill Ben- nett describes trauma-related art as “transactive”, rather than communicative, as it “touches us, but it does not necessarily communicate the ‘secret’ of personal experience”. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze, Bennett states that feelings can function as catalysts for critical inquiry or deep thought, in the way they force us to engage involuntarily.7 Yet, despite this undoubted poten- tial, which can be observed at exhibitions, where audience members often appear profoundly touched by such works and seek to engage in conversations with the artists, the latter can easily become targets of hostilities. A particularly dramatic example of this is the installation artist Manaf Halbouni. In Feb- ruary 2017, Halbouni created a public art work, Monument, on the square facing the “Frauen- kirche” in the city of Dresden. The installation consisted of three buses, placed upright next to each other. It referred to measures taken by citizens in the Syrian city of Aleppo to protect themselves from snipers by creating shields of cars and buses. An image of this was captured by a young photographer and widely shared by international media.8 For Halbouni, linking the fate of Aleppo with that of Dresden served a double purpose: he wanted to remind the audi- 4 See e.g. Hayes 2015 and Miller 2005, p. 42. 5 Miller 2005, p. 46. 6 For a discussion of the importance of witnessing in overcoming trauma, see Bennett 2005, p. 31. 7 Bennett 2005, p. 7. 8 Laurent 2015. Manaf Halbouni, [2017] Monument; [Manaf Halbouni], Kunstinstallation “Monument” 2017 <http://www.kulturpaten-dresden.de/project/manaf-halbouni-transport-fuer-monument>,[accessed 22nd May, 2018].