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Ala' Younis
Shukran Faransa! (Thank You France!)
- 60 Minutes of Not Seeing and Not Hearing -
installation | 2007
In 2006, Israeli bombings left Lebanon with torn bridges
and disconnected regions which led several countries
to provide relief assistance. France installed temporary,
narrow, heavy-metal bridges to replace some of those
that had been ruined by the war. It was during my first
personal encounter with these metal aids that my Lebanese
friends, who had grown accustomed to crossing such essential
yet make-shift connections, started to mockingly say:
Shukran Faransa! (Thank you France!) I keep thinking
about the many meanings that could be read from their
tone…
I found the metal pieces I have used while I was on
my way to collecting the ticket of that trip to Beirut.
I picked up these worthless pieces because they could
be interpreted as being different letters. I thought
that the time would come when I would understand this
"metal" coincidence. For this work, I assembled the
pieces to make a bridge that resonated with the one
we crossed that day; so many interpretations can be
made of this one metal structure: a bridge, a spine,
a round of bullets...
I had so many ideas I wanted to explore in a video but
I had no idea about how to execute them. I felt as if
speechless... In order to avoid time-code technical
editing problem, I covered the camera lens, unplugged
the microphone, and recorded 60 minutes of mute black
footage onto a tape.* With this readied tape, I am now
prepared for any future recording. I felt that this
footage reflects my reaction to past events in the region,
including the war on Lebanon.
* 60 minutes is the average time that is devoted to
a detailed news broadcast, which I silently and unwaveringly
watch every night.
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