The title of the exhibition shares its name with a poetic sound installation by the Istanbul based artist Hale Tenger, named Life, Death, Love and Justice (2018) inspired by an Anatolian idiom ‘The water finds its crack’ as well as Eduardo Kohn’s book How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. The meditative sound installation by Tenger creates an experiential space within the exhibition, where one can contemplate the existential questions vocalized through a woman's whisper. This work has become a mental space, a departure point for the exhibition.
Life, death, love and (the search for) a sense of justice exist everywhere: in nature, beyond borders and it even exists in war, and (especially) within all forms of struggle. The artists featured in the exhibition examine these vital notions in their own struggles, along with those of allies, friends and everyone else. As filmic essay, portrait photography series, collectively written book, drawing as documentation or poetical sound exercise, all of these artworks are based on personal stories, testimonies, research and investigative projects. They subtly create a map that allows us to orient ourselves in times of crises and embody empathy. It might seem that these problems and topics are not present in our environment after all, and that they are problems that belong ‘somewhere else’. However, the opposite is true. Everywhere in the world we are witnessing deeply rooted and ongoing structural violence, racism, and intolerance towards all underprivileged people. Perhaps a moment will come when a Roma Lives Matter movement will emerge in Slovakia and for many other marginalized people in different geographies and contexts.