In the shade of the sun

In the shade of the sun contemplates the relationship between politics and aesthetics by an exciting new generation of Palestinian artists. The exhibition comprises new commissions by artists Mona Benyamin, Xaytun Ennasr and Dina Mimi as well as a new sonic performance by Makimakkuk.

Moving between mediums that include film, installation, music and gaming, In the shade of the sun brings together artists that are forging a new language to think about and with Palestine. Their individual practices intertwine in soft expressions and radical politics, from the absurd to the poetic, as they make work for future times within the crisis of the present.

Tomorrow, Again, by Mona Benyamin stages a dysfunctional news broadcast that consists of different segments which recreate and react to various prominent daily catastrophes from Palestine. Instead of a spoken narrative, the film resorts to exaggerated emotional and physical displays. It utilises fragmented and often conflicting testimonies, doppelgängers, and a surrealist visual language to draw on notions of truth and fiction, and differing temporalities. The cast of the film sees two protagonists, the artist’s parents, assume multiple identities as they narrate and consume their own stories in an endless cycle.

This group of artists is brought together by Bilna’es (in the negative), an adisciplinary platform that seeks to find new models for artists to redistribute resources and support one another in the production and circulation of work. Functioning as an interdisciplinary publishing space with releases ranging from music to video games Bilna’es was initiated by Ruanne Abou-Rahme & Basel Abbas, Muqata’a, and other anonymous figures as a way to support artistic communities in Palestine and beyond. The exhibition is curated by The Mosaic Rooms in conversation with Bilnae’s.