The video The Last Word by Shirin Neshat from Han Nefkens H+F Collection will be shown in the exhibition 'Une fenêtre suffit…' (A window will suffice…) from January 15 to February 22, 2013 at the Espace Culture from the Université Lille 1.
As part of the cycle 'Mediterranean' organized by the Espace Culture from October 2012 through April 2013, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais is featuring two Middle Eastern video artists in this exhibition. Besides Shirin Neshat also Raedah Sa’adeh and her video Vacuum from the collection of 49 Nord 6 Est FRAC Lorraine.
A window is a source of light, of images, of communication, but what it reveals is not always visible, or it is visible only in part. The window thus plays a double role: it exhibits and dissimulates, it acts as a springboard both for our imagination and for our demands.
The two videos by Shirin Neshat and Raedah Sa’adeh are like two windows open onto women’s condition in the Middle East. The two artists invite us to adopt their gaze…to listen to their voices. Each tells us in her own way—one through metaphor, the other through narrative—her stories, her experiences, her feelings, and her insights.
The first artist, Shirin Neshat, is Iranian and works in the United States. In her 2003 video, The Last Word, a woman is subjected to an interrogation in the basement of a building, and recites the lines of the poem Window by Forough Farrokhzâd.
The second artist, Raedah Sa’adeh, is Palestinian and works in Israel. In Vacuum, she evokes both submission and rebellion. She acts out a scene in which she is vacuuming the desert. This Sisyphean gesture challenges the notions of identity and gender, denouncing in particular the status of Palestinian women.
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