We Began By Measuring Distance, 2009
Basma Al Sharif
We Began By Measuring Distance, 2009
Video Installation
Installation view
Photo by Alfredo Rubio
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Basma Al Sharif
We Began By Measuring Distance, 2009
Video Installation
Installation view
Photo by Alfredo Rubio
The work began as hours of unrelated footage and a frustration with history, facts and the impossibility to reconcile tragedy with my own experience of a lifetime of witnessing tragedy from a physical distance to Palestine.
The video consists of long still frames, text, language, and sound woven together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance.
The measurements begin innocently as physical measurements (inches, shapes, degrees, etc) and then transition into political ones (between cities, iconic dates, and upheavals).
The video explores the different ways images and sounds communicate a narrative, a history, an event, or simply: a feeling. We Began By Measuring Distance reveals an ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic.
2009
Excerpted from Provisions, Book 1, catalogue for the 9th Sharjah Biennial
This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 9
Basma Al Sharif
2009
Video Installation
Installation view
Photo by Alfredo Rubio
Published to accompany Sharjah Biennial 9, Provisions is an experimental catalogue approaching the space of the book as an art project.
The second book in the Provisions series looks at the experience of taking part in and attending a biennial.