The pleasure of observation as a point of entry into conversations around personal narratives with the hope to express a subjective experience of a world.
I was born when the sun was in Gemini, a sign whose ruler planet is Mercury, or the mythological god Hermes. With a natal chart that shows a Gemini ascendant and a Mercury ruled by Gemini, one could say, I have been imprinted with influences of certain planetary spheres and psychological motives.
The 3 videos I present, claim to illustrate such influences, or at least, invite you to think about them in such a way. As a start, I propose certain qualities which connect these works to one another: mutability and improvisation, fleetness and ambivalence. Qualities that could relate to my ‘ruler’ Mercury, or astrologically speaking, Gemini.
It’s difficult to deny, that in my practice, something is inferred but not explicitly declared. Boats that sail, adrift with no shore. In an attempt to figure one thing out, another thing interrupts and becomes of value.
Digression and distractedness are part of my chirography. These works exist as my short travelogues, giving an account of where one has been and where they are heading to, always informed and perhaps determined by a constellation of circumstances.
I have never seen a horizon like this
HD Video / 12:19 min / 2020
In “I have never seen a horizon like this” (2020); I employ images that were shot during a luxury fashion shoot in Vietnam. Sidestepping the shoot’s central action, models and key characters, I scan the periphery, capturing the Vietnamese landscape and people who surround the glossy, industrious Western crew. At times, I catch myself searching for a frame, while at other times the locals are my focus. Using my ‘Work For Hire’ contract as subtitles, the video connects the ambivalent worlds in which I sometimes operate, as an artist but also as an industry professional.
The Sons of Abu Hal’a
HD Video / 07:11 min / 2015
“The Sons of Abu Hal’a” (2015) is a result of a small study on the shift from private property to government acquisitions during English rule in Cyprus, specifically relating to the Medieval castle of Kolossi, in Limassol. An official letter (1924) found in the Cypriot State Archives reveals the address of the last recorded owner of the castle, an Egyptian man named Sidarus Bishara, before its declaration as an ancient monument by the English Antiquities Law. Following this discovery, I decided to set out to Cairo to track down if anything still remains there, hoping I would experience an echo of Mr. Bishara. Disappointingly, I encounter a traditional coffee shop in a derelict area with its friendly but suspicious customers. I eventually get distracted and seduced by the vibrant and loud felucca boats on the river Nile.
Murmur
HD Video / 03:59 min / 2011-2016
In “Murmur” (2015) an audio recording made from fragments of an informal conversation with a Syrian refugee in the island of Kastellorizo during summer holidays becomes my excuse to reuse footage from travels in the Aegean Sea, which were shot previous years and intended for another project. I bring these elements together with a scene of a billowing shirt tied on a ferry’s deck that was transporting hundreds of refugees to the island of Lesvos, shot that summer of 2015.