THE ZONE

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme

The Zone is the first solo exhibition by Ramallah-based audio-visual artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme in the UK. A new site-specific installation, it explores the unique social dynamics that have brought about the eruption of a consumerist culture into the Palestinian struggle, amidst an increasingly dystopian environment.

The Zone takes, as its starting point, what took place after the failure of the Palestinian Resistance movement: the transformation of the PLO into an ‘authority’ and eventually a ‘security’ regime and with it the birth of new political discourses and desires largely centered on consumption. In these discourses, the fantasy of a pleasurable, prosperous existence, blind to the increasingly visible violence of the colonial situation, sharply contrasts with the brutal reality of the Palestinian social, political and urban landscapes. In one of the darkest moments in Palestinian lived history, a ‘dream-world’ has emerged: a collective form of dysfunctional phantasmagoria that perpetually denies both the failures and disaster of Palestine’s current situation.

Abbas and Abou-Rahme have created an immersive environment for the visitor, who, upon entering the installation, is subjected to a disorientating, sensory experience. In the narrow corridors and ominous rooms of The Zone, the familiar feels strange. At any given time, The Zone concurrently navigates the dialectic of dream and catastrophe, desire and disaster, past and present, near and far. This ambivalence is rooted in Abbas and Abou-Rahme’s artistic language, bringing together sound, video and installation, often juxtaposing found footage, archival material and field recordings - a way of working that came out of the need to formally express the violent geographical and political fragmentation experienced in Palestine and the wider Arab world.

With the support of The Delfina Foundation.

Curated by Eva Langret

21 May - 20 August 2011