The Spanish conceptual artist Santiago Sierra is staging a major performance that will last nine or ten days, during which the names of people who have died in the Syrian civil war will be read aloud. His new work, The Names of those Killed in the Syrian Conflict between 15th of March 2011 and 31st of December 2016, will take place in four locations. Pairs of Arabic speakers will read out a total of 144,308 names that have been compiled and verified by a team at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.
Sierra, who has produced two similar performances with the names of victims of war and occupation in Israel and Palestine, says he was inspired by the late Japanese artist On Kawara’s One Million Years (1999)—a memorial to everyone who has ever lived or will ever live. The work consists of a list of dates stretching one million years into the past and one million years into the future, compiled in books (a reading will take place at this year’s Venice Biennale).
Sierra says he was also “moved by a deep shame about being European and seeing the infamy with which those fleeing from Syria or from any other disaster are treated”. His work aims to honour the memory of those killed “with a performance that is internationalist, monumental, radically pacifist and anti-militarist”.
The performance began at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv on Sunday 21 May and continues at Wiener Festwochen in Vienna and London’s Lisson Gallery before concluding on 29 May in Buenos Aires at the performance biennial BP.17. The full performance is also being live-streamed online and at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan, where Sierra’s Mea Culpa survey is on show (until 4 June).
Lisson Gallery’s space at 27 Bell Street will host a solo show of new work by Sierra on 7 July, and will remain open for the full 48 hours of the performance there on 25 and 26 May. “It’s a controversial subject as well as one that is live,” says Emma Gifford-Mead, the gallery’s head of exhibitions. “Our location in London is close to Syrian communities and it will be interesting to see how they react to the performance.”
