Extrusion of the Other

Extrusion - displacement, expulsion, ejection. The other is the principle of plurality, the principle of difference, the principle of disordered movement.

Main conception, Idol, video editing, music - Darja Kazimira. Paintings on sheets, voice, assistance - Elizaveta Zdeblovskaya

In 1942, on January 8, in the vicinity of the Burinsky Forest (Būriņu mežs), in the territory called “Long Mountains” (Garie kalni), 443 patients of the Psychoneurological Hospital Gintermuiža (Ģintermuiža) were shot, becoming victims of fascist terrorism. The isolation of the mentally ill in the category to be destroyed was due to the ideology of Nazi Germany, which implies the creation of a perfect society, on the basis of a eugenic program for the sterilization and physical extermination of people with mental disorders, mentally retarded, and hereditarily burdened patients. This story became the starting point for the realization of the project “Extrusion of The Other”. The authors are Daria Kazimira (Latvia) and Dagmar Gertot (Russia). The concept was based on the idea of Other and the process of its removal (extrusion). At this stage of the presentation of the concept, it should be noted that we sought to annihilate the significance of the historical and political context, transforming the central ideas into symbols. The most plastic form that can accommodate the spaciousness of meaning was the idol. The authenticity and versatility of this phenomenon is devoid of burdens with connotation, while at the same time combining within itself the hierophanic and profane beginning; religious and naive art, allowing us to freely pave the way from the fundamental concept of the Other, to the local history of the executed mentally ill. The image of an idol originally implies an established cult, which is part of a common ritual system. Consequently, the installation of Idol is directly related to the formation of sacred space. In the project “Extrusion of the Other,” we borrow this traditional semantic link, opening up a mythical space that interacts with the memory of a place, the sound of which reinforces additional ritual attributes created from materials that are part of the studied area. As noted earlier, the Idol becomes the repository of the concept of the other, its material carrier, which distorts the environment, which allows it to generate sacred space, destroying the idea of time and clearing history to the state of narrative. The stage of oblivion and extrusion reveals the following meaning of the existence of this materialization, implying the abandonment of creators, loneliness in space and organic destruction by the environment. In the end, there remains only the question: is it possible to destroy the Other? ... We believe that this is impossible. Because from the origins of the formation and objectification of the other, to its physical destruction, it continues to be an integral part of the unified diversity.