Memory Flows like the Tide at Dusk
Palestinian artist Alexandra Sophia Handal's first solo museum exhibition, Memory Flows like the Tide at Dusk, focuses on the divided city of Jerusalem and the personal and collective consequences of losing one's home and homeland.
Through the voices of 28 Palestinian refugees Handal tells the story of how expropriated Palestinian homes in West Jerusalem are today marketed as houses in "Arab style" for an exclusive Israeli clientele. Houses that many Palestinians still hold the keys to.
The exhibition's main work, the real estate agency website, Dream Homes Property Consultants (DHPC), appears to be a typical agency. But just a few clicks into the site another world unfolds; a world of Palestinian stories about their former life in the houses. Handal was first introduced to the real estate advertisements in the 1990's and has since tried to recreate, document and explore the memories of those displaced.
With a wide variety of works including film, photography, drawings, prints and web she combines personal memories and experiences with a poetic approach, creating new knowledge of what seems so easily forgotten. Her extensive research tells the story of a city divided by physical zones, as well as mental borders, deeply rooted in the individual person.
Memory Flows like the Tide at Dusk is the culmination of this 9 year long research and exhibition project shown here for the first time in its entirety.
Since 2004 Handal works between Palestine and Europe spending the first ten years in London, subsequently moving momentarily to Amsterdam before setting-up her atelier in Berlin. Originally from Bethlehem, she spent her childhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, her adolescence in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and was educated in the US and UK.
The exhibition is curated by Alia Rayyan, Director of Al Hoash, an exhibition space for Palestinian art in East Jerusalem.
The exhibition is part of Images 16 and realised in cooperation with the Danish Centre for Culture and Development (CKU). Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.
Images 16 presents contemporary visual art from Africa, Asia and the Middle East focusing on global challenges and the role of the artist in society. More than 30 exhibitions and events in 16 cities in Denmark have been realised in cooperation between 25 cultural institutions, the municipality of Holbæk, 16 international curators and the Centre for Culture & Development (CKU).
