Not a matter of if but when: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come, 2003
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
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It’s not my memory of it: three recollected documents, 2003, video, NTSC, 25min, Not a matter of if but when: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come, 2006, video, 32min, in Arabic with English subtitles, in collaboration with Rami Farah, still
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It’s not my memory of it: three recollected documents, 2003, video, NTSC, 25min, Not a matter of if but when: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come, 2006, video, 32min, in Arabic with English subtitles, in collaboration with Rami Farah, still, Installation view, photo by Alfredo Rubio
It’s not my memory of it: three recollected documents, 2003, video, NTSC, 25min, Not a matter of if but when: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come, 2006, video, 32min, in Arabic with English subtitles, in collaboration with Rami Farah, still
Project Description
Not a matter of if but when was developed in 2005-2006 in Damascus, Syria. This period was marked by momentous events: Rafiq Hariri, then Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated; Syria was pressured to withdraw from Lebanon after a 30-year military presence; the “Cedar Revolution” came and went; elections were held in Iraq and were followed by a descent into civil war; and Hezbollah strengthened its position in southern Lebanon. These events reverberated in Syria and gave rise to widespread anxiety and anticipation around the potential for imminent change – regime change, internal reform, internal collapse, civil war, and religious upsurge. Over a period of several months, the artists collaborated with actor and filmmaker Rami Farah to record short sequences in which Farah responded to a prompt or a written text. Through a combination of direct address and fantastical narrative, Farah’s improvisations speak to living in a condition of uncertainty, chaos and stasis.
In collaboration with Rami Farah
April 2011
This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 10
