Artist from Palestine Nabila Irshaid in Malonioji: „Where Would You Fly If You Had a Flying Carpet?“
2015-02-02
LTMKS Project Space “Malonioji 6” Malonioji str. 6, Vilnius
Opening 4 February 2015, 6 pm Exhibition open 4-14 February 2015, Wednesdays and Saturdays 6‒8 pm or by appointment tel. +37063190615
In 2006 I wanted to highlight the fact that the wall of 9 m built between Israel and Palestine has terrible side effects on the daily life of every Palestinian living in the Occupied Territories. Farmers can no longer cultivate their fields, pupils have to pass check points within the wall to go to school. Grandparents can only visit their grandchildren nearby when they take hours of detours to make the distance of 10 km.
Sometimes the deprivation even worsens when more checkpoints are put up on he streets to control the Palestinian citizens on their way to work, school or when giving birth on the way to the hospital. It is sad to say that the situation until 2015 didn ́t change much, although information is spread widely in all kinds of media in every corner of the world!
To enable Palestinians to talk about their situation I created “Flying Carpet”, an installation with a carpet and some poufs to hang on in museums in Europe, the U.S. and Palestine. A video conference of 3 weeks between Salzburg and Ramallah, and later of 3 month between Boston and Bethlehem enabled people sitting on the poufs to communicate via Skype with people watching on the live scale screen on the other side. The museum visitor stumbling into the installation can take the opportunity to exchange and ask questions dropping the usual fear and prejudice. The Palestinian can give first hand information about unknown facts.
Additionaly with that lounge-like situation I screened the video “Where Would You Fly If You Had a Flying Carpet?” Around 80 Palestinians were giving contributions. Their answers illustrate a picture of many violated Human Rights cases, isolation and collective punishment.
Since 2010 I am trying to install a Summeracademy in Palestine, invite people to come to Ramallah and exchange with Palestinan artists, creating new works in a 3 week workshop. Until now and for many reasons it could not happen.
As an artist I think my role is to share a different view on contemporary situations, to shake up and shape society or the art world and not be scared by political / capitalistic intimidation.
Nabila Irshaid – a visual artist from Palestine, focussing her work on political and social matters. She is working with time based media, creating public art as participative process. She has studied Visual Communication at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, Germany, and has exhibited worldwide.
Curator Rokas Dovydėnas www.nabilairshaid.com
The exhibition is partially supported by Lithuanian Council For Culture.