One Image by Nina Strand:

I am thinking of the video work Voir la mer by Sophie Calle which I saw yesterday at the Musée national Picasso-Paris. Six videos of Istanbul residents seeing the sea for the first time in their lives. They are filmed from behind, looking at the sea. Then they turn around. One of them is very self-conscious in the beginning, looking into the camera.

During the ceasefire in Gaza, the Palestinians were told it was forbidden to go to the sea. Among all the atrocities, I still think about that. I can't see the reels of shaking children, I talked about it with a friend here in Paris who told me it was the same for her, but that she knew what was happening without seeing, that she had all the images of the war in her heart without having observed anything. I decided to lean on this faith and instead share other testimonies from the crisis. Like Chris Hedges’ speech about how we are failing the children of Gaza. He cries as he speaks.

I think about the way the Turkish people look into the camera. It reminds me of Kim Hiorthøy's exhibition Jeg er nesten alltid redd (I'm almost always afraid) at Fotogalleriet in 2003. Hiorthøy asked his friends to stand in front of a Super-8 camera for the duration of the roll of film. For three minutes you can look at these people and see all their thoughts, fears and self-consciousness seeping out of them. I think about the fear that we all carry within us.

I am going to a dinner tonight and there has been an email exchange about what to bring. A Frenchman replied that he would bring all his feelings. Me too.