Memoir, 2016
Site specific installation with copies of a memoir, letter, key, sound, and tiles.
Composed of a letter, a memoir and a key in Ramallah, tell the story of one Kuwaiti family's displacement from the West Bank after 1967. Kuwaiti author Ghassan Al Rifae's letter states his permission to reprint his memoir displayed with his key to the house and a recording of his singing and reciting sections of the memoir. According to his memoir, The good, the bad. and the ugly, Al Rifae is forced to leave his childhood home in Palestine with his family during the 1967 war. In his memoir he recalls the house, the land and the atmosphere of the area during those summer nights before his exile.
Subverting victim roles, the gaze, and the key holder, a falsely constructed pedestal with perfectly matching tiles. Playing with notions of bifurcation, deviation of the line and a politics of subversion, the falsely erected plinth splits the path of narration and truth from the intended geometric pattern in Palestinian tiling, as its own right and heritage to distorting perspectives and disrupt the pattern. The floor tile pattern is raised by a false, plinth, or elevated platform continuing the original floor pattern. Matching the original floor tiles, they extend from the ground, up and out into the space at the former home building of the Palestinian historian Aref Al-Aref, just a few streets from Al Rifae’ original home, which shares similar tile pattern.
