Yellow Submarine to Taliwood: 11/12/21
In this instalment of his diary entries, Gittoes writes from Kabul on the evacuation of civilians from the city after the Taliban's acquisition of power.
Watching footage of crowds running with the huge grey evacuation planes, some made it up onto the wheel hubs. Most were reaching for something to hang onto but one guy was sitting and looking into his phone screen. Was he saying goodbye to loved ones? Was someone desperately telling him to get off before it was too late, or was he sending a message to the world? Someone must have received that call and kept it and perhaps he recorded the lift off as the pilot ignored the humanity around the undercarriage and wheels and took off.
This era started with desperate people jumping from the the towers of the World Trade Center; it ended with desperate people falling from a plane over Kabul.
My friend Carolee Schneemann exhibited works of people as they fell from the towers and was severely criticised by the art community for doing so. I am working on a large painting which I see as a companion to Carolee’s work. In mine people are falling from a plane over Kabul. News commentators brushed over the inhumanity of the pilot. No one would dare compare this callousness to that of those who piloted the planes into the Twin Towers.
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