REVIEW Images - Courtesy of the artist. Writer - Janet Bellotto, artist, educator and writer.
Larissa Sansour: Heirloom Exploring memory and identity through science fiction at the Venice Biennale “Entire nations are built on fairytales,” states the character
after the disaster. Alia, the young clone of the scientist
Dunia, responding to Alia in a conversation about memory
Dunia, argues with her about the lived and recollected
and the past in Larissa Sansour’s In Vitro. This two-channel
experience. Dunia lays in her death bed dreaming to
film is part of her presentation Heirloom, curated by Nat
return to a past or her home rebuilt. We experience
Muller, for the Danish Pavilion at the 58th International
memories that Dunia clings to along with those that are
Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
collective and archived through the cloned existence of Alia. As a clone, memories have been implanted, and
Heirloom also includes the mixed media installation
Alia carries the experience of others of a place bygone.
with soundscape Monument for Lost Time, which is
As a new place rebuilds, Alia has a strong will for her
encountered in a room across from the film projection.
own identity and experiences rather than the ones she
The enormous sculpture of an ominous black sphere,
inherited.
with surround synthesized sound, dwarfs the visitors to the pavilion and reflects back to images seen in the
The function of memory is brought to task and questions
film—science fiction infiltrating the real. However, it is
the necessity and the impact of nostalgia. Where does
the narrative of this world underground that explores
an individual’s memory begin and when is it reinvented
nostalgic memories and hope of a future rebuilt.
by the stories of others? Dunia argues how “We were all raised on someone else’s nostalgia.” Yet Alia states, “The
The black and white film opens with a wave of black
problem with nostalgia is that it keeps you entertained…”
oil rushing through the streets of Bethlehem. It
and continues “...while everything you cherish washes
encapsulates a sensation of destruction of all the blood
away.” Deafened by the past and questioning the
lost and memories washed away. Along with transitions
building of the future, inherited trauma, along with the
between archival footage and the narrative past of
role that memories play, weave throughout the scenes. As
the character Dunia, we cannot forget the events of
time navigates from past to future in the film, charged with
Bethlehem’s complex and turbulent history. The story
ownership, heritage, as well as exile, it raises questions:
is set after an ecological disaster of Bethlehem and life
whether the erasure of memory and the neglecting of
living underground—embedding its metaphor for a
clinging to nostalgia would be better for the future, or
life suppressed but safeguarded from threat, while the
whether memories are necessary to avoid future mistakes
Palestinian city can be reconstructed or restored. We
and the construction of a new identity.
see an orchard being replanted, cloning from the seeds that remained.
Heirloom, and in particular In Vitro, provides no immediate consolation for the future in face of disaster, but engages
The film’s title clues the viewer that the character has
the notions of memory both its potential prospect and
been made, and in fact a clone from remaining DNA
hinderance for new beginnings.
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