Mnemosyne by Inas Halabi, 2016, 10'

Courtesy of the artist. The work is commissioned for the Young Artist of the Year Award, AM Qattan Foundation

Presented at VISIO. Moving Images After Post-Internet (2019) The title of the work refers to the Greek goddess of memory and the ‘inventress of language and words’. The starting point for the project is a scar on the forehead of the artist’s grandfather caused by a bullet shot by an Israeli soldier in the late 1940’s. Focusing on the sagas of myth and the construction of memory, members of her family are filmed individually as they narrate their version of the same event. The project considers how one can play the role of a historian when the primary source is no longer there. ‘We do not remember. We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.’ (Chris Marker, Sans Soleil). As such, recollection becomes an act of transformation rather than reproduction.

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