Between the wall and the sides

BETWEEN THE WALL AND THE SIDES exposes the patterns of dehumanization, settler colonialism, and profit that lie at the root of genocide. It was made as a silent animation while in residence at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg South Africa and screened with live musicians improvising as part of their Collation 2 event in October 2024. This draft includes music by Mthwakazi who performed at that event. It incorporates imagery from THE BOOK OF GENOCIDES, my interactive-art-installation-turned-disaster comic (forthcoming from Harvard University Press) and unfolds through page turns of the same a mid-20th century Zoology text used in the book. It traces the life and work of Raphael Lemkin the Polish Jewish jurist who coined the term genocide and established the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. It connects the possible origins the convention’s failure to prevent the ongoing genocide in Palestine to Lemkin’s rejection the 1951 “We Charge Genocide” petition Black Americans filed against the US government.