Resisting Erasure concept of statelessness in Europe. Here I adopt Winegar’s usage of the term ‘reckoning’ to highlight agentive qualities and capture how people deal with something that appears to have been already set. 12 In this piece I highlight the strategies adopted by the art interlocutors and how these then foster empathy. I show how the title of ‘statelessness’ is rejected and reshaped to become more relatable in terms of home and belonging. Then, I focus on how stateless art interlocutors explore the universality of experience, and redefine boundaries between stateless and non-stateless people. Finally, I explore how these stateless art interlocutors build a dialogue with Europe, subverting a discourse that silenced and oppressed them. These methods and thematic shifts underline the main empirical finding that stateless art interlocutors reckon with statelessness by fostering empathy, rather than sympathy. REDEFINING STATELESSNESS: ‘HOME’ Fascinatingly, most stateless art interlocutors, expressed significant disapproval of the term ‘statelessness’. The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons definition, of a stateless person as an individual ‘who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law’, remains the only internationally-accepted definition. 13 Thus, a powerful tool in stateless art interlocutors’ arsenals, is that of refuting this literal meaning of ‘statelessness’, and redefining it on their own terms, based on the borderless, universal concept of ‘home’. So, as participants try to navigate between identifying as stateless, and defining their experiences which are more complex and nuanced, how do they contest the term? Firstly, ‘statelessness’ is refuted as something that marks stateless actors as inherently ‘Other’. Palestinian photographer Ahlam Shibli claimed that she far prefers the term ‘homelessness’. It is worth noting that here ‘home’ refers to the conceptual understanding of a place where one feels one belongs, rather than a place of residence. Shibli explores this in her project Staring where she exhibits photographs taken in Kassel (Germany) and Al-Khalil/Hebron (Palestine) exploring the struggle to establish a ‘home’ from radically different perspectives. 14 In Kassel, the photographs show immigrants engaging in community-based activities, placed aside images of Palestinian homes scattered nearby Israeli watchtowers and prisons. With this, Shibli shows how ‘home’ isn’t solely a problem for stateless populations, creating an empathetic space, where conversation can flourish exploring the similarities and differences whilst communicating respect and recognition. 12 13 14 Winegar (n 5) 6. 1954 Convention (n 3). Ahlam Shibli, Staring: Nine Episodes from Al-Khalil/Hebron (Palestine) and Kassel (Germany) (Photo Collection, Remai Modern 2016) <https://remaimodern.org/field/webcommissions/ahlam-shibli-staring>. See also Figs 1, 2. 317