Knafeh
The work fell
into four groups. There were photos of sand works, shapes made on breaches by
people, some of which included the people but other just had foot prints and
lines. Then there were marble sculptures carved in the form of different posed
breast feeding cushions. These created lovely smooth, Henry Moore like shapes
and it wasn’t until you went close that you realised what they were.
I loved her salt
works, which were objects she had left in the Dead Sea to be crystallised. Best
were the nooses which had a fragile look for such an ugly object. Fascinatingly
she has plans to create a crystallised salt bridge across the Dead Sea to cross
the gap between Israel and Palestine. That could be so moving.
However my
favourite piece was a video work, and yes I know I have been rude about video
art recently! This showed the making of an Arabic sweet-meat called knafeh. It
is filmed from above and is made in a big round flat pan on a stove. Around the
pan were all the things that would be needed to make the sweat. The objects had
an almost cubist feel but this was broken at times by the man making the sweat.
I found it had an almost hypnotic feeling as you watched the ingredients
transform and wondered what the next stage in the process was. A video I did
want to give time to!
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