Haidi Motola
1982, Haifa, Israel/Palestine
time and space
Mold Poisoning. Nothing prepared me for it - I was extremely happy when I got into the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts; everything seemed so perfect and possible. I could never imagine the danger that was hiding there.
My work is the outcome of a long, traumatic experience that started in the school, in my studio where I got sick from toxins and mould. It was a process of getting sick, realizing that I’m left alone, that I can’t trust the people around me, and then a long recovery period in the desert, where I slowly recovered my health and myself. An important part of that process was meeting and talking to other people who had experienced the same. I found out that the problem was huge in Finland and that the same negligence, secrecy, and silencing repeated itself in many places.
Now I want to tell you the story of a sickness that officially doesn't exist; of people who don’t get any treatment and who are left alone to struggle against a blind bureaucracy. In my work I examine the borderlines between a healthy and a sick body, the limits of science and medicine and their political and social aspects, and the boundaries of documentary practice. I’m trying to make a movie that I was missing when I got sick.