2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) Figure 9: ‘My Papers, My History’ — 1948(2). Then, by giving stateless art interlocutors the agency to tell their own story, they break stereotypes of a long-standing discourse which marked statelessness solely by vulnerability. Aesthetically, this is constructed through a style theorised by Edward Said in Orientalism, establishing an ontological and epistemological distinction between ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident’, which justifies ‘a style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient’. 30 Swaitat in Alien Land tackles this head-on by opening with ‘I invite you to come with me to a new universe — to the heart of the Oriental Imagination’. 31 In doing so, Swaitat nods to the Orientalist gaze, and then proceeds to deconstruct it. For example, Saeed claims: ‘I never fought over borders as some of you have accused me. And I never joined a political party, a military faction or the national army as your friends have suggested’. 32 By critiquing these Orientalist stereotypes and forcing the audience to reflect on their possible implication in them, Swaitat enables a deeper empathetic connection and understanding of statelessness, not just as a problem of the ‘Orient’. Moreover, stateless art interlocutors subvert the Orientalist discourse by rejecting its attempts to make stateless experiences only visible when they are stories of vulnerability. Miriam Ticktin coined the term ‘Casualties of Care’, when defining the victims of ‘regimes of care’ constructed in Europe, that allow those living on the margins of the nation-state to become visible only if they bring their stories of suffering to the forefront. 33 Yet, stateless art interlocutors reject an understanding of statelessness as a vulnerability that needs European rescue. An 30 31 32 33 Edward Said, Orientalism (Penguin 2003) 3. Alien Land (n 1) 1. ibid 2. Miriam Ticktin, Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France (University of California Press 2011). 326