Weer een prachtig en sprekend nieuw kunstwerk van de Canadese kunstenaar Caleb Hamm.

Just Beyond the Viewfinder

A beautiful and striking new artwork by Canadian artist Caleb Hamm, a longstanding Free West Papua supporter

Violent hands of Indonesian militia grapple to remove a demonstrator’s Morning Star bandana; the flag which stands for West Papuan self-determination, independence and freedom. As such extreme violence and unspeakable images of human rights abuses from West Papua become more widespread in the media, an equally sinister narrative lies just beyond the camera’s viewfinder. Dressed in a suit, the corporate opportunist slyly skirts the circle of the frenzied wolf pack. Finely dressed and far removed, the benefactors remain comfortably perched at the top of the pyramid. But it is largely the suit which must be held responsible for the heinous conditions in West Papua as they continuously ensure the lid of silence remains tightly fastened.

Not only does the suit allude to the corporate greed of oligarchs and tycoons, but it also represents those in the White House, Australian Parliament, at the UN and other governments who continuously refuse to even acknowledge or discuss the present conditions. Rather than enforce a strict arms embargo, the US Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, just visited Indonesia four days ago as an effort to improve military cooperation with Indonesia.

It’s a suit worn by the likes of Dr. Henry Kissinger, who influenced, among many, the overthrow of President Sukarno, supplied Indonesia’s special forces with arms and strategies for the Communist purge and the invasion of East Timor and West Papua. Well versed in espionage tactics, corporate strategies, and war crime persuasion, Kissinger was a lobbyist for Freeport McMoRan and had been a director of FCX since the 80’s and was also a majority stockholder. In case of environmental or indigenous rights concerns, or in the case of expired contracts, changes in policy or government, Kissinger always showed up in Jakarta with his black bag of trickery and deception. With connections in both the corporate and the political arenas, Kissinger is the perfect metaphor of the big trickle down surrounding Freeport McMoRan and Rio-Tinto’s impact in West Papua. So much could be said for the mindless environmental destruction, resource exploitation, transmigration (10% funded by the World Bank) and genocidal atrocities committed... mother of bride dresses

“words glancing like birds dancing off the news page into the territory of history’s rage as the leather of weather holding us with storms in books, scolding those forms, those looks of curiosity by molding the idea of democracy around me, surround me with the media, the truth and the lie as it is or as it was, proof for a time, now proof for a crime, as what matters ..is not what we see, apparently, who scatters those leaves and meanwhile tatters the sleeves of his pride so as not to disrupt the pedals of his ride through the corrupt pull of returning the favour with a system yearning the flavour of the flames of freedom.”