Nuit Blanche 2020 - Maskouneh, Jumana Emil Abboud in collaboration with Issa Freij
Video installation as part
of Nuit Blanche 2020
Saturday October 3rd, from 8pm to 2am
Warning : Mandatory booking at this address
- Jumana Emil Abboud in collaboration with Issa Freij, Maskouneh (Inhabited), 2018, Captures.
As part of the Nuit Blanche on Saturday 3 October 2020, Villa Vassilieff presents the video installation Maskouneh (Inhabited) by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud, in collaboration with Issa Freij. Already presented at the Tate Modern (London, UK) in 2018, at Darat al Funun (Amman, Jordan) and at Bildmuseet (Umeå, Sweden) in 2017, this video installation will be completely rethought and readapted for the Nuit Blanche in order to be projected on two screens outside the Villa Vassilieff, in the Chemin du Montparnasse.
The 2020 edition of the Nuit Blanche proposes that we question our anthropocentric viewpoint and turn it towards all living beings. Curated by four museum conservators (Amélie Simier, Musée Bourdelle; Jeanne Brun, Musée Zadkine; Christophe Leribault, Petit Palais and Fabrice Hergott, Musée d’Art Moderne), this edition, rethought according to social distancing measures, will offer a rich itinerary, particularly on the Right and the Left Bank of Paris.
Download our Press release
See the Nuit Blanche Press release and the full program
Maskouneh
- Jumana Emil Abboud in collaboration with Issa Freij, Looking for water (location scouting for Maskouneh)
Maskouneh (Inhabited) is a visual translation of the research and collections conducted by Jumana Emil Abboud over almost ten years on Palestinian oral histories and their relationship to the earth and landscapes. This video installation focuses on landscapes almost devoid of human presence. Bird songs resonate through the forests, a horse wanders through a rocky field, a series of hills partly obstruct a remote town. Pink trees in flowering bloom. A goat bleats. Rain falls, streams rumble, water flows into the caves. Here and there, a human figure sits, small in the distance.
This work explores themes of memory, loss and resilience through our relationship to landscape. Together with photographer collaborator Issa Freij, the artist has travelled to film the sites of the stories, called «haunted sites», once thought to be inhabited by spirits, both good and bad. These are often places that have a deep connection to water sources known for their restorative power.
This installation is an attempt to make visible and archive places that are not shown on any map and are confronted with both the powers of nature and the powers of politics. In the artist’s own words, the «almost aggressive alteration of the landscape today - new cities, infrastructure and illegal settlements - has resulted in many Palestinian sites disappearing, buried or confiscated; many water sources and the stories and memories attached to them are now separated from our roots, as part of a slow process of erasure. »
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