Kan Yama Kan

After a deep long night sleep, five stories emerged from my imagination and dreams. I live in a world of images that are parts and segments of many buried stories that struggle all the time to come to light. This time, I decided to set free some of my hidden fears. I remember John Berger once saying," As long as there will be people who tell the story, the same story, the nation will continue to survive. " I feel time runs very fast and I am worried about the distance we suddenly have to our past and history. It feels as if we fail to remember.

 I wanted to create a one to one experience where the viewer is isolated from his surroundings and starts to travel to another dimension. By closing one eye, the round hole in the middle acts as the tunnel in time – Destination is Palestine . The multidimensional box offers the viewer to look deep into its three-dimensional space where photos line up one next to the other. In their collective, they tell the story of a nation and a land.

 The method of presentation intends to attract the viewer to look closely at the photos, hoping that this close distance of looking at the images will help to trigger certain imaginations and memories that will continue even after the person has left the exhibition. The box might resemble a "sarcophagus." I believe death is a transition from one-dimensional space to another one. In death, we are actually transformed to other beings. This transformation is important to me as I hope that the story that lies in the dark space resurrects and is celebrated again. I see in the "sarcophagus the transporting vehicle of the story that leads directly to our minds and perception.

 Artists are always the mirror of their times. In history, we always analyze the civilization or culture of a nation through the works of art of that period. Five noted artists who originally come from five different Palestinian cities painted on the boxes their inspiration and vision of the story. The outcome of their hard and inspiring work is remarkable. Each one of them painted with a passion that celebrates and revives the story of the "Box". The collaboration was important, and many of them expressed how they felt attached to the "Box" after they have painted on it. It was hard to give it away! However, in that hardship, joy is born, just like after a good night story that our parents used to tell us. Six artists joining hands for one and one cause only – to help people to remember. Because it is in that memory that this nation will continue to survive.

Kan Yama Kan

t h e  l a n d   Bashar Al Hroob 

b e y o n d   t h e   se a   o f   g a z a  Hani Zu'rob 

b r i d a l  d a n c e  Inass Hamad

t h e  e v i d e n c e  Monther Jawabreh    

t h e  d a y   t h e   b i r d s   m i g r a t e d   Rafat As'ad

 

E n j o y  t h e  s t o r i e s

Steve Sabella