Video Art
A woman without a home
This video started from a recurring dream where I live my body. The dream kept coming back and I began to ask myself what does it mean ? What is a home? Is it the family ? friends ? or maybe the house where I live ?
And my body ? When i got sick I was hospitalized and I realized that my body had betrayed me ! I looked around and looked at my bed which has carried my body 20 years ! The bed is my home and our homeland ‘ because on the bed we cry , make love , the bed knows all our secrets.
When we’re sick we are on the bed , and when we die they but our body on the bed .
I decided to drag the bed to the desert, in the snow, and in the cities hoping to find a place where I could rest my head
In the end I put the bed in the sea because the sea has space. It has no boundaries and no army .
Strangenees
The video discusses the sense of strangeness within the country and family. The sense of instability and steadiness in one place. The video further discusses the sense of migration from one place to another with a suitcase, and how the suitcase becomes our permanent house.
Body recalled
The project deals with the wedding day, the day when a couple unites physically and meets each other for the first time. There are ceremonies which cultures believe in such as cutting the bride’s hair prior to her wedding .
The status of women, which has changed in the course of years, and the attitudes of men to woman in these times.
Beyond the walls
A slow and constant stream of figures flood the alleyways of the Old City of Acre. People dressed in white garments carrying on their heads objects of memory, screaming out in silence.
It is difficult to differentiate between men and women, between young and old…their walking is weary, their expressions touching, a shadow of yearning in their faces, like a traditional funeral parade, or a march of missing spirits, that do not allow respite.
Longing
A large and long wall started to be built opposite me. I stood opposite it silent. I felt tiny in front of the large wall. I saw the boundary line that was constructed in ’67 and the second line, constructed recently.
I looked at the distant houses and imagined
the step after construction. What’s going to happen ? Will we reach a situation in which we , the Palestinians ,will start talking to one another by megaphone ,as in a
Watchtower ? Will this boundary line really bring the hoped for security and calm ?
Will the Palestinians who live here again be split ,and how many boundary lines will
still be constructed?
Rebirth
Light surrounds you when you are born and when you die…. In almost all cultures death has much meaning. Each culture relates to death differently. Although the subject of death occupies many of us, we are too afraid to deal with it.
Fear of the unknown, fear of loneliness, fear of dying alone.
In Islam death surrounds us each minute and second. Each one of us needs to be prepared for his death.
The release of the soul from the body; life in the shadow of loneliness; maturation and aging; each person’s preparation for the last journey.
We are very attached to our bodies. When we die we uselessly try to return to them or at least circle around them. Only when it is clear that we have no shadow or reflection in the mirror or footprints then we stand in front of the fact that we have separated from our body.
We cling to life even when he knows and feels that he is in his last days. Where does the soul go and disappear? Should the dead body be burned? Or throw it in the river as in the Hindi tradition where the soul transmigrates and enters another body. Or as in the Islamic tradition where the soul stays for 40 days turning around the body and sees everything happening in the house and only then disappears into the grave and waits for the Day of Judgement.
Where do we go? This is a universal question that until today has no answer.
My relationship to my body that passes through many changes from childhood to old age; a body that lived, breathed, and felt passion throughout life. A body that all our lives we nourish and care for can betray us. Sometimes there is no control of the body, it stops breathing the moment the soul is released. In that moment we can lose the body.
Is there an agreement between the body and soul when they will release each other? Or does the soul betray the body in its passing.
House
I was born in Acre a Mediterranean sea-side city. Somewhere in my childhood I also dreamt of a palatial house and a prince on a white horse…
In ancient cities like Acre and Jerusalem, dreams like this don’t last long. There is no palatial house. Tired women buy and sell in the market. Too many soldiers are in the streets. The masculine view rules…
I wanted to flee, as far as possible, to return to the dream, to remain a child. I built a castle. I wore white. I returned to the market carrying the palace on my head. Local women passed me, also carrying burdens on their heads – baskets and merchandise. …men pass me by
…soldiers pass me by
…I sought a safe place to locate my house
…I sought to protect my dream… went out to the sea. Light surrounds you when you are born and when you die…
Fasatine
At the end of 1947, the first shots rang out in the village. In 1948 the Palestinians fled in fear from the village. Since then they have not returned to the place.
The houses still stand, part of them ruined, olive trees, fig trees and vines sprout wildly… awaiting their owners. The place is quiet… there is nobody there.
During the Intifada, I was drawn to the place time and again. I returned to it, I felt connected. A daughter of the village – that’s me! I sewed long black dresses. One, then another one… and another and another. Eight dresses, each one 180 cm long. I took all of them to the village. I hang them there between the houses, on a roof, in a stairwell and also in the spring.
Empty houses lacking inhabitants… empty dresses without bodies. Silence and quietness hovers over the place. Only the wind resuscitated a scream – my cry