No One Harms Me Unpunished

Object with thistle & steel

Berlin, DE
2012

According to a Scottish legend, a thousand years ago on a dark and misty night, a group of Viking raiders stole into a Scottish town. The night watch had dozed off and was undisturbed by the invaders until one of them stepped barefoot on a thistle. The thistle broke, and, unable to stifle his cries of pain, the invader‘s clamor alerted the townsfolk, who then drove all the invaders away. From that day onward, the thistle became the symbol of Scottish regiments, rugby teams, and, finally, the Scottish Unionist Party.

The phrase “No one harms me unpunished” is part of the motto of the Order of the Thistle, the motto of three of the Scottish regiments in the British Army. It translates to “Wha dour meddle wi‘me” in Scots or, rendered in Gaelic, “Cha togar m’fheag gun dirdlah.” It is said that the sentence originates from Caesar‘s last words as he was being assassinated by the Roman Senate: “Nemo me impane lacessit,” which translates in English to “No one can harm me unpunished.” The thistle has thus become a symbol of resistance. This symbolism makes it a promising instrument that allows the transposition of heroic narratives and national myth within the context of sexual relationships.

While adopting the thistle as a metaphor for passive resistance and applying it to the battered frame of a mattress, it documents a state of oppression and abuse that is still quite common but disregarded in modern societies.

3-Dimensional

Media
Thistle, bronze, steel

Dimension
192 × 136 × 25 cm

Exhibitions
Narben der Erinnerung, Museum Reinickendorf, Berlin
Songlines for a New Atlas, Kalmar Konstmuseum, SE
Magic and Power, Marta Herford Museum
Walk the Line, Dallas Contemporary, TX, USA
Labor 12: Drifting, HKW, Berlin

Links
Experimenter – Hindustan Road
Corniche Review, TimeOut Mag

No one harms me unpunished, 2012. A battered mattress intertwined with thistle flowers, symbolizing resistance against oppression and overlooked abuse, Nadia Kaabi-Linke

The sculpture by Nadia Kaabi-Linke is made of, among other things, thistles, and is large as a double bed or carpet. The piece No One Harms Me Unpunished takes as point of departure a Scottish legend in which once upon a time Vikings slipped into a town at night. One of them happened to step barefoot on a thistle and screamed loud waking up the inhabitants, which saved the city from plundering. The title of the work is also the motto of the Scottish Order of Thistles and denotes national resistance. It was used by Scottish resistance fighters and later also by English regiments and gentlemen’s clubs. The work can also be seen as a symbol of individual defense or resistance.

In the UN Refugee Convention one can read about the right to seek asylum in a safe country when one flees from prosecution and war. Today people are forced to flee over the Mediterranean, as there are no legal routes into the EU for asylum seekers. The sociology professor Saskia Sassen describes how the picture of the migrant has changed. Whereas before the migrant was someone who left their home deliberately searching for a better life, yet always had a home to go back to, today’s migrants often have no place to which they could return. Sassen calls this a massive loss of habitat.

 

– Torun Ekstrand

 

Object view
No One Harms Me Unpunished, 2012

Exhibition
Drifting, HKW, Berlin

@
House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin

Courtesy
Courtesy of the artist

© Photo: Kaabi-Linke Studio | TiKL, 2012