Having been born during the Iran-Iraq war, Leila Zelli's aim is to show the paradox of life in war-torn countries, with those little interstices of life that demonstrate the immense sadness and small moments of joy, the hope despite everything to underline the will to live and survive. Everyone has the right to these little moments of happiness, like those shouts of joy in a swimming pool, even in a hole dug by a bomb and filled with water...

The paradoxical border of each extract, whether it's the infinite flickering of a neon sign, the hope of electricity returning to a hospital, or the resilience of a flowering plant beside a ruined building, takes a tender look at complex situations experienced by an Other, from "elsewhere". In this way, the artist hopes to provoke a moment of reflection on the lives of war survivors, who are no longer others from elsewhere, but our neighbors, here and now.

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"There's something implausible about war... its grandeur, its harshness, its destruction that bring humanity to its extreme.... its extreme "humanity".... With extreme violence or extreme tenderness.... The cohabitation of these contrasts is incredible! Incredibly beautiful! Incredibly ugly! .... So incredible that once experienced, it will never be forgotten..."
– Leila Zelli

In an interview with the literary theorist and author of Sidérer, considérer : migrants en France, 2017, Marielle Macé invites us to become aware of the way we look at the Other, to stop being flabbergasted in front of Him, in front of Her, and to consider the Other as a singular living being, in the same way as ourselves. The Other and the realities of his or her life can never be reduced to a framework, an image or an explanation.

"It's this emotional, intellectual or political journey within each of us that enables us to move from flabbergasting to consideration, in other words, from an emotion in which we are dumbfounded by a situation of suffering, an exorbitant collective historical situation [...]. And moving from this emotion of flabbergasting to one of consideration means becoming patient, stopping believing that we recognize situations of suffering or situations of historical relegation, and taking an interest in the lives that are lived, even if they are unbearable, but which are actually lived on a daily basis. This is perhaps the most difficult thing of all, to realize that an unlivable life is also made up of a daily routine, a psychic intimacy, an interiority. It's made up of emotion, boredom, dreams, attempts to risk a daily life, a new daily life, even in the worst possible situations. So that's what it's all about, this passage from amazement to consideration."

Some excerpts were presented for the first time as an installation in Leila Zelli's exhibition Terrain de jeux (2019) at the Galerie de l'UQÀM.