In her films and installations, artist Larissa Sansour is interested in using dystopian images and folklore
to explore notions of myth and nostalgia. Strongly influenced by elements of science fiction and their intersections with archaeology, politics, and music, her work deals with the loss of memory and national identity in the Palestinian context. At the 58th Venice Biennale, she presented her two-channel film In Vitro (2019), co-directed with Søren Lind, which is set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster in the biblical town of Bethlehem. As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night (2022) is a three-channel video work featuring an Arab opera on loss, mourning, and inherited trauma. The work is presented like an altar triptych and features an aria newly composed by Anthony Sahyoun and sung by Nour Darwish, based on Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and the Palestinian folk song ‘Mashaal’. Familiar Phantoms (2023) is an experimental documentary exploring the impact of fiction on the creation and reinterpretation of memory. In this essay film, inspired by the artist’s childhood memories, Sansour blends live action shots with a variety of archival material consisting of collages of objects, family photos, and Super 8 footage. ‘Memory is a master of deception’, the artist states. Sansour’s images point to a practice that follows one’s intimate memories and blind spots, blurring the lines between fiction and documentary as fabulations overlap in the fragments of a family’s history.

Work in the exhibition: Familiar Phantoms (2023), 1-channel-video, sound, 42’. Courtesy of the artists