2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(2) It is a basic human condition that involves belief and trust in the world. It is the stuff of our dreams and desires, our ideas of freedom and justice and how we might conceive life. 107 In the conference, this particular art experiment tried to evoke a hope that does not ignore the suffering of others; a positive hope that stateless people hold as humans, which further succeeds in humanising the issue of statelessness. In my opinion, however, it is worth noting that this conceptual art experiment — of presenting the hope of stateless people — did not come directly from the stateless persons themselves. As a result, we cannot know for sure if stateless persons themselves would conceptualise it in the same way or how they would have preferred to present it artistically. Rather, it is based on the very subjective experiences of the artist; the combination of his experience and the dominant narratives of statelessness (invisibility and of a people drowned in despair). In short, it is not informed or translated from the experiences of stateless persons and remains a top-down interpretation of stateless people’s experiences and trajectories. How Do You Survive in a World That Does Not Recognise You?: Recognising ‘Agency’ It is commonly agreed that statelessness is a status of victimhood where stateless persons are passive victims of circumstance. 108 Creative Court has been working on their new project to show the agency and resilience of stateless people, instead of looking at them as ‘passive victims’. The last two months of my internship were solely focused on Creative Court’s statelessness project. I was often engaged in discussion with Rabiaa and participated in six concept development meetings alongside the other members of Creative Court. During the first concept development meeting, Rabiaa declared that her idea was to focus on the perceptions and activities through which stateless persons connect themselves with a world that does not recognise them, then translate it using an artistic medium to visualise it. 109 She also told me her initial idea was not to focus on stateless people’s vulnerabilities and sufferings, rather their agency and practices. 110 She was interested and invested in the situation of Western Sahrawi, where a group of stateless persons currently live in an occupied territory of the Moroccan desert. Rabiaa gave me an interview to transcribe, one which she conducted with a stateless person from Western Sahrawi, Drik. 111 In the interview, Drik shed light on the many aspects of their stateless life. Drik expressed a strong sense of identity regarding the Western Sahrawi community. According to him, Sahrawi culture is about the words, stories, poetry and advice of their wise men, they pass it down through generations. They are nomadic, constantly searching for water. He emphasised that even though they are living in a camp, in the middle of a desert, under an occupied territory, frozen in a status quo, they remain survivors. He said, ‘we are not stateless, the oppressors made us. 107 ibid 12. 108 See Bloom, Tonkiss and Cole, ‘Introduction’ (n 27) 3. 109 Concept development meeting with Rabiaa Benlahbib, Director, Creative Court (Mizanur Rahman, Creative Court 12 July 2019). 110 ibid. 111 In order to protect the person’s identity, I am using a pseudonym. 294