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    Jumana Emil Abboud / Pernod Ricard Fellowship 2020

    Jumana Emil Abboud, by Colin Davison

    Jumana Emil Abboud (b.1971, Palestine-Canada) lives and works in Jerusalem and London where she is cur­rently a PhD can­di­date at Slade School of Art. She uses drawing, video, per­for­mance and text to nav­i­gate themes of memory, loss, and resilience.

    Abboud has par­tic­i­pated in numerous inter­na­tional exhi­bi­tions and fes­ti­vals during the last decade. Since 2008 her work has been included in: Women Artists, MAMA (Musée national d’art mod­erne et con­tem­po­rain d’Alger), Algiers, 2008; Intimate Narratives - Masarat Palestine, Les Halles des Schaerbek, Brussels, 2008; Scènes du Sud II – Méditerranée Orientale, Carré d’Art–Musée d’art con­tem­po­rain de Nîmes, Nîmes, 2008; Sentences on the Banks, Darat al Funun, Amman, 2010; Acción! MAD–International Festival of Performance Art, Madrid, 2010; Paper Feather Sugar Water, Foundation 3,14, Berge, 2011; Second World, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz, 2011; Points of Departure, Al-Mahatta Gallery, Ramallah, and ICA, London, 2013; Cinematic Prism, Arts Initiative Tokyo, Tokyo, 2017; On Women and Revolution, Gallery One, Ramallah, 2017; and When ani­mals talked to humans, Gallery Travesia Cuatro, Madrid, 2018. Solo exhi­bi­tions have included: Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine, Kunstraum, London & BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2016; O whale don’t swallow our moon!, Khalil Sakakini cul­tural center, Ramallah, 2016; The Horse, the bird, the Tree and Stone, Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå, 2017; The pomegranate and the sleeping ghoul, Darat Al Funun – Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, 2017; in addi­tion to the 53rd & 56th Biennale di Venezia, 2009 & 2015; Qalandiya International, Palestine, 2012 & 2016; Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj in Ramallah Shifting Ground, 2017; Living Together per­for­mance fes­tival, MOAD DADE College, Miami; BMW TATE LIVE Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2018; and Hide Your Water from the Sun per­for­mance, The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, 2018.

    The pro­ject

    Inspired by Palestinian oral his­­tory, with a focus on folk­­tales and their con­nec­­tion to actual sites within the land­s­cape, and to water in par­tic­ular: streams, springs, wells. Water as a ‘keeper’ as well as ‘car­rier’ of knowl­­edge and memory. During her res­i­dency stay, Abboud will expand on her research on the place of water as a source of story, past and pre­sent, fable and real. She will follow sto­ries of water across France, tap­ping into its mate­ri­ality and value, through visits and exchanges with people, museums, libraries and land­s­capes in order to tran­s­late the tales and fables sur­rounding water.

    Jumana Emil Abboud, Bride by the Spring, 100x80, Canvas, 2016. Courtesy Khaled Shoman Foundation. Photo : Issa Freij.