WATCH: Unexpected sensations in “Palestine Interrupted” video installation by Adam Abel

Palestine Interrupted Trailer from Adam Abel Studio on Vimeo.

Artist Adam Abel recently released the above trailer which puts into linear form segments from nine short videos which are the basis of his master’s thesis exhibition at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York City.

Abel states on his website:

I am using narratives from Palestine to disrupt narratives about Palestine. Predictable images of military, checkpoints, walls and violence are absent in my videos. Through fragmented vignettes and sensorial experience, I weave together moments that are melancholic, hopeful, mundane and anxious.

Abel’s website shows a model of his installation, which took place in late summer of this year. In the installation, the vignettes which appear in the video are looped and appear on separate monitors displayed in a circle. Inside the circle are spot-light stools for viewers to observe the looped video.

Abel’s other work includes Qalqilya, a forthcoming film project documenting emerging counter-culture in the occupied West Bank.

His work is in the spirit of other documentation of alternative youth culture in Palestine like “Not a dreamland,” a six-minute multimedia feature produced by the ActiveStills photography collective with support from The Electronic Intifada, and Jackie Salloum’s documentary Slingshot Hip-Hop.

There is thirst for images, video and sound which show that Palestine is a lot more than a location of occupation and conflict — that it is also a place where young people are developing new cultural forms and expressions, adding to a rich cultural legacy.

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Mabrook! As an artist and writer myself, art in its many forms has historically opened up new paradigms. New ways of thinking, acting and relating.
Adam Abel's piece and forthcoming film is one of those. It is in the integration of ideas, visions, dreams, and hope that compassion emerges. The world needs a lot of that.

Maureen Clare Murphy

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Maureen Clare Murphy is senior editor of The Electronic Intifada.