“There are only individual men and women.” (2018)

Text, cross stitched on Linen, Silk threads, white on white.

50 cm * 35

In a public Speech by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher she announced the new age, the time for a change in the structure and dynamics between state and private sector, simultaneously  US president Ronald Reagan fell within the same lines. “Popular capitalism​ is nothing less than​ a crusade​ to enfranchise the many​ in the economic life​ of the nation​. … from France to the Philippines​, from Jamaica​ to Japan​, from Malaysia​ to Mexico​, from Sri Lanka​ to Singapore​, privatisation is on the move​.. “Having a nation of shareholders as part of our vision because we wanted people to understand capitalism.” added a Thatcherist politician.

At its most crude, Thatcherism represents a belief in free markets and a small state. Rather than planning and regulating business and people’s lives, government’s job is to get out of the way.

It should be restricted to the bare essentials: defence of the realm and the currency. Everything else should be left to individuals, to exercise their own choices and take responsibility for their own lives. The statement ultimately is potent now more than ever, in Palestine and elsewhere. Privatization has never been of more relevance to individuality, culture, institutions, “solidarity” …  

​” And, you know, there’s no such thing as society.” –

in an interview in Women’s Own in 1987

Commissioned  by Khalil Al Sakakini Cultural Center as part of the Exhibition “DEBT” curated by Reem Shadid and Yazan Khalili for Qalandiya International 2018

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