Nationality n/a:
Passport for the Stateless
In law, statelessness is the lack of any nationality, or the absence of a recognised link between the individual and any state. According to the UNHCR there are about 10 million stateless people worldwide, although the Institute of Statelessness and Intergation (ISI) demonstrated the presence of more than 15 million. The causes of statelessness are many, from succession of States to the non-allowance of females to grant nationality to their children.
Point is, while we take nationality for granted, being with a nationality is your ticket to enter the administrative and bureaucratic procedures. People who are stateless simply cannot issue an ID, meaning they cannot officialy work, travel, marry, get an education or a health insurance. They are not even considered as numbers in the governmental eye.
Therefore, after studying the case and understadning the situation, this project is to create a community for the stateless to belong to. Create values, ideas and visual representations for the Stateless that disputes all what prevents them from their rights as human beings. This project is hypothetical but it’s merely based on truth and reality that we take for granted for how dissonant it is with our beliefs and values. The stateless are prisoners because the the bureacratic system of today’s governmental organisations. Yet, they’re free for the same exact reason that made them prisoners, that they are no part of it.
Supervision: Ghalia Elsrakbi
Point is, while we take nationality for granted, being with a nationality is your ticket to enter the administrative and bureaucratic procedures. People who are stateless simply cannot issue an ID, meaning they cannot officialy work, travel, marry, get an education or a health insurance. They are not even considered as numbers in the governmental eye.
Therefore, after studying the case and understadning the situation, this project is to create a community for the stateless to belong to. Create values, ideas and visual representations for the Stateless that disputes all what prevents them from their rights as human beings. This project is hypothetical but it’s merely based on truth and reality that we take for granted for how dissonant it is with our beliefs and values. The stateless are prisoners because the the bureacratic system of today’s governmental organisations. Yet, they’re free for the same exact reason that made them prisoners, that they are no part of it.
Supervision: Ghalia Elsrakbi
Photos: Ramy Tarek
Year: 2015
The Passport’s pages were destroyed and cut by authorities at the airport on it’s way back to Cairo from Dubai Design Week 2016.
Later this photo inspired Alexandra Stock on curating her exhibition, Occupational Hazards, in Newyork, where the destroyed passport was shown.
The passport shown at Occupational Hazards exhibition in New York. Curated by Alexandra Stock. July 2019.