Nil Yalter. Exile is a Hard Job: Walls

A comprehensive archive on Nil Yalter’s eponymous guerilla project which the artist has realised in 19 cities around the world to date.

The publication focuses on Nil Yalter’s eponymous work "Exile is a Hard Job: Walls,” bringing together a comprehensive archive on this guerilla postering project which was first realized in Spain: Yalter recreated as large-scale posters the black and white photographs and drawings of a blue-collar workers’ family, put them up on the walls of Valencia and added with red paint in Spanish, “Exile is A Hard Job”, the last lines from Nazım Hikmet’s poem “from Sofia” (1957). This guerrilla gesture takes Yalter’s artistic practice out of the bounds of art institutions and gives visibility to the daily struggles of immigrants. The project has by now been implemented on the walls of 19 cities, each time in the native language of the city as well as the predominantly spoken languages of the immigrants.

Text: Nil Yalter, Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu, Mira Benabeu, Melanie Wagner, Chéryl Gréciet, Eda Berkmen, Rita Kersting, Jerome O Drisceoil, Kader Attia, Hoor Al Qasimi,  Fabienne Dumont, Frank Lamy, Steìphanie Airaud, Mayssa Fattouh, Sumesh Manoj Sharma, Zasha Colah, Vincent Sabourin, Dirk Snauwaert, Gürsoy Doğtaş, Nina Tabassomi, Mia Rigo, Clotilde Scordia, Ecem Ümitli, Edwige Baron with the Berlin Biennale Team. Umfassendes Archiv zu Nil Yalters gleichnamigem Guerilla-Projekt, das die Künstlerin in den letzten zwölf Jahren in bislang 19 Städten auf der ganzen Welt umgesetzt hat.

Text: Nil Yalter, Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu, Mira Benabeu, Melanie Wagner, Chéryl Gréciet, Eda Berkmen, Rita Kersting, Jerome O Drisceoil, Kader Attia, Hoor Al Qasimi,  Fabienne Dumont, Frank Lamy, Steìphanie Airaud, Mayssa Fattouh, Sumesh Manoj Sharma, Zasha Colah, Vincent Sabourin, Dirk Snauwaert, Gürsoy Doğtaş, Nina Tabassomi, Mia Rigo, Clotilde Scordia, Ecem Ümitli, Edwige Baron with the Berlin Biennale Team.