Basma Alsharif

Farther Than The Eye Can See

Farther Than The Eye Can See uses the landscape of the Emirates as an anonymous urban space that appears new, uninhabited, and with the vague promise of something better. The voice of a woman recounts her story of the Nakbah (the mass exodus of Palestinians from Jerusalem in 1948). Her story begins with an arrival that progresses towards the departure. The video moves backwards and forwards in time and space, allowing us to experience both at the same time. Rather than undoing the tale, the particular details the narrator chooses to share stand out, and we are asked to trace a fading experience of a place that no longer exists.

Format: HD video
Running time: 13 min

Home Movies Gaza

Download catalogue (PDF)

Home Movies Gaza introduces us to the Gaza Strip as a microcosm for the failure of civilization... In an attempt to describe the everyday of those who dwell there, I began to record footage for Home Movies in what is often referred to as the largest open-air prison in the world. In order to describe the everyday of a place that struggles for the most basic of human rights, this video installation claims a perspective from within the domestic spaces of a territory that is complicated, derelict, and altogether impossible to separate from its political identity.

single-channel video installation, 25 min

Basma Alsharif, born 1983 in Kuwait, of Palestinian origin, is an artist and filmmaker living and working nomadically between Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE, Jordan, the United States, and most recently Paris. Her works include The Story of Milk and Honey (2011, Forum Expanded 2011), Turkish Delight (2010), and We Began by Measuring Distance (2009).