An analog photograph of a watermelon, displayed in a red frame, has been reproduced multiple times and framed accordingly. Yet, each version is unique: on every print, the handwritten phrase “This is not a watermelon” appears in a different language.

While this series clearly references René Magritte’s renowned La Trahison des Images (1929), a seminal work of Western Surrealism, it simultaneously subverts that reference by repeating the phrase This is not a watermelon, handwritten in various languages by by people from the global majority living in Berlin, Germany.

Here, the repetition of the phrase This is not a watermelon performs like a mantra that seems to affirm two things that apparently contradict each other: On the one hand, the repetitive act attempts to negate that, what we see is not a watermelon. On the other hand, while repeating it, the act affirms its inevitable existence. Although it is phrased negatively, the mantra-like repetition invokes the significance that the watermelon has acquired during the last two years of the ongoing war on Gaza, as a symbol of solidarity with Palestine. What we are seeing isn’t a watermelon, nor is it merely an image of one..it’s more than that.One can also interpret the performative act of the repetition as a form of political-activist determination oscillating between irony and transparency, courage and paranoia… between a sense of collectivity and at the same time, a feeling of isolation and desperation.

In its own distinctive way, this series of unique pieces addresses the ongoing censorship and pressure faced by those speaking out in support of Palestine, and asks: What is left when the language is not a safe place to dwell? When naming becomes an act of lethal defiance?  

Each wooden frame is hand-colored on the outside with a red pencil for children. The oily consistency of the pencil’s graphite stains the hands of whoever touches or holds them.