Under water and up in the air is a symbolic and political science fiction short story written in four languages. The book can be read in one, two or all languages. A poster gives topographical and lexicographical references.
On a floating platform, six characters are waiting for a fast food delivery. A strange event transports each of them to a different planet. These worlds represent the specific mind-set of the characters. As a result, they ought to question their relations to otherness, ethics, religions or their feelings... At the heart of this experience, appear the ehiiaya, embodying the dead beings, the victims of oppression in the past and the present. Materialised as dust carried by the winds, these entities contain within them the hiwaa language, where the "I" of the other three languages is absent.
In this book, each language tells a parallel and complementary story in relation to the other languages. The experience of the entities and characters in the story, like languages, hybridizes, transfers to other lives, to ancestors, to memories, to blood, to bits of bodies.
"everything happens very quickly. on the surface, there are humans, despair. in the depths, a multiplicity: births, ancestors, stories, emotions, wishes, desires… words are ostensibly fading, melodies are rising, from all directions, vibrations intermingle. laughter is a character, a space for radical listening. humans are falling apart, ROEs are blown away. the wind is a revolution.
appearing in the storm, the ehiiaya and the underwater entities face oppression and refuse reclusion.
in order to ally with the ehiiaya and the underwater entities, it is essential to disrupt identities and challenge languages and readings. it is a matter of multiplying interpretations, possibilities and futures to avoid hostilities.
it is a matter of embracing the fact that differences in relation to others follow a lack of mutual understanding as we are confronted with unsuspected languages. the unknown is not inevitably adverse.
each language unfolds a parallel and complementary story in relation to other languages. languages aren't a mere means of communication, they are also gestures, relationships to the world, sea streams that never mingle despite being in contact. languages do not belong to either the academy nor legislature, but to any entity who tempts to extract from them thoughts and desires.
and as any language or any entity, a life story is neither simple nor singular. It hybridizes with and transfers to other lives, other entities, ancestors, memories, blood, fragments of bodies…
here, to love is conjugated only in the plural."
Born in Lebanon in 1993, Rita Elhajj is an artist who lives and works in Geneva. Her exhibitions include Festival Les Urbaines (Lausanne), CAC-Brétigny (Brétigny sur Orge), Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel (Basel), la Rada (Locarno), LiveInYourHead (Geneva), one gee in fog/two gees in eggs (Geneva). Her work takes the form of installations, sound pieces, set design and performances.
