Red in Tooth, 2020-2023
INstalled at the 13th Sharjah Biennial
The Wazzani River flows through Southern Lebanon and into occupied Palestine. During the Occupation of the South of Lebanon by Israel starting in 1983, massive extraction pipes were established pumping out water from the Wazzani and across the frontier. The river and its surrounding ecology suffered a fate similar to the wildlife and humans of the region, slow violence resulting in complete toxicity.
In the series Red in Tooth, a mesh between moving image and material practice underscores a mapping, witnessing, sensing and ethnographic practice through which the governing forces along this territory would unfold.
The installation made up of individual pieces of fabric act as a palimpsest of the river, being dug into its ground and washed with its rainwater as a way to patchwork painting reassembled according to the context it is being displayed in. At the Sharjah Biennial 15 on four separate metal cables cutting diagonally through the courtyard, weighed down by coral rocks, the cables intersect to form the outlines of Al Wazzani river as it moves across the landscape.
A filmwork following the drive towards the Wazzani River along the UN enforced Blue position the environment in an elsewhere realm, in between opposing spaces, occupied by military surveillance and concrete animosity. It becomes an absent witness, or a witness of absence, around which culminates secrecy.
—
Dala Nasser - Director
Jad Youssef - Cinematographer and editor
Mhamad Safa - Sound producer and composer
Jawad Al Amine - Guide and trap cam operator
Sabine Saba - Animator
Toni Geitani - Equipment
Marina Tebecherani - Color corrector
Rayyan Abdelkhalek - Translator
Leen Charafeddine - Title designer
Dala Nasser, Red in Tooth, installation view at the 15th Sharjah Biennial 2-6/2023.