The Afterimage of History: Moving Image Installations by Palestinian Artists as Testimony and Resistance.

This presentation examines recent moving-image installations by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme; and Larissa Sansour with Soren Lind. Their evocative, emotionally charged projects address political, social, and historical themes through moving images, song, and dance. They each include archival materials (contemporary or historic) to amplify how communities bear witness to generational experiences of violence, loss, and displacement.

May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth (2020-ongoing) by Abbas and Abou-Rahme (Palestinian in Brussels) consists of an interactive online video archive at DiaArt and a multi-channel moving image installation (MoMa, New York 2022) that serves as an extension of the archive. The artists collected footage posted online by ordinary people of mourning, longing, celebrating, and dancing. Together, these videos and installation serve as joyous acts of resistance to colonial oppression and erasure.

As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, (KINDL, Berlin 2023) is a dramatic and haunting 3-channel video and sculptural installation by Larissa Sansour (Palestinian in London) and collaborator Soren Lind (Danish). Shot in the ruins of a church, the video features soprano singer Nour Darwish, who combines the Palestinian freedom song Al Ouf Mash’al with Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder both created in response to war and loss. The project incorporates traditional rituals of mourning and brings them to the present. These two thoughtful and provocative projects consider song, dance and the moving image as a site of testimony and resistance, a political act. Together, these artists provide a new space for understanding the complex political situation in Palestine.