Jayce Salloum, Elia Suleiman, Basma Alsharif

Introduction to the End of an Argument and Ouroboros

14

March 2024

14

Mar

2024

Seventh Gallery Lawn

Introduction to the End of an Argument and Ouroboros

Jayce Salloum, Elia Suleiman, Basma Alsharif

14

March 2024

14

March

2024

Seventh Gallery Lawn

We are pleased to introduce Seventh Cinema, a free public cinema season spanning seven weeks. In collaboration with guest artist Kori Miles, we have curated a series of film programs on a temporary outdoor cinema on the gallery's adjacent lawn. In this inaugural season we have selected films that approach the intersections of neo/colonialism and global climate change, zooming in on global colonial expansion and its persistent effects on the environment, human rights, and cultural landscapes.

See the full Seventh Cinema Season 1 program here.

ϟ

Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of An Argument) (1990), 45 minutes, directed by Jayce Salloum and Elia Suleiman.

With a combination of Hollywood, European, and Israeli film; documentary; news coverage; and excerpts of 'live' footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza strip, Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument) critiques representations of the Middle East, Arab culture, and the Palestinian people produced by the West. The video mimics the dominant media's forms of representation, subverting its methodology and construction. A process of displacement and deconstruction is enacted attempting to arrest the imagery and ideology, decolonising and recontextualising it to provide a space for a marginalised voice consistently denied expression in the media.

"Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Territories, has come to us courtesy of the media. And it is through the media that our impressions of the uprising have accreted via image and text. Jayce Salloum, a Lebanese-Canadian artist; and Elia Suleiman, a Palestinian filmmaker living in New York, have taken on our accumulated (mis)impressions by tracing their genesis in cinema and television. This highly kinetic tableau of appropriated sights and sounds works most earnestly to expose the racial biases concealed in familiar images. The storehouse of misconstrued ideas about Arab culture is shown in all its cinematic splendor, from the denigrating seraglios in films such as Elvis Presley's  Harem Scarum and Valentino's The Sheik, to the dehumanization of Arabs as evinced by epics like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Speaking for oneself... it would be compelling if it were nothing more than this compendium of Arab stereotypes, but it is much more. Taking snippets from feature films (Exodus, Lawrence of Arabia, Black Sunday, Little Drummer Girl, etc.) and network news, Salloum and Suleiman have constructed an oddly wry narrative, mimicking the history of Mideast politics. Through key political phrases... we see repetitive distortions transformed into foreign policy. The injustice, of course, is that this is our history of their struggle. Speaking for oneself... is a first attempt at making the image and the act one and the same."

— Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archives

ϟ

Ouroboros, 2017, 75 minutes. Dir. Basma Alsharif.

Ouroboros is acclaimed visual artist Basma Alsharif's first feature film. This experimental film is an homage to the Gaza Strip and to the possibility of hope based on the eternal return. The film follows a man through five different landscapes, upending mass-mediated representation of trauma. A journey outside of time, marking the end as the beginning, exploring the subject of the eternal return and how we move forward when all is lost.

— Momento Films

Image Description: This image is a film still from Ouroboros, and shows a person with shaven hair presenting fanned out playing cards to a caucasian person with short blonde hair inside a home.

We are pleased to introduce Seventh Cinema, a free public cinema season spanning seven weeks. In collaboration with guest artist Kori Miles, we have curated a series of film programs on a temporary outdoor cinema on the gallery's adjacent lawn. In this inaugural season we have selected films that approach the intersections of neo/colonialism and global climate change, zooming in on global colonial expansion and its persistent effects on the environment, human rights, and cultural landscapes.

See the full Seventh Cinema Season 1 program here.

ϟ

Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of An Argument) (1990), 45 minutes, directed by Jayce Salloum and Elia Suleiman.

With a combination of Hollywood, European, and Israeli film; documentary; news coverage; and excerpts of 'live' footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza strip, Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument) critiques representations of the Middle East, Arab culture, and the Palestinian people produced by the West. The video mimics the dominant media's forms of representation, subverting its methodology and construction. A process of displacement and deconstruction is enacted attempting to arrest the imagery and ideology, decolonising and recontextualising it to provide a space for a marginalised voice consistently denied expression in the media.

"Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Territories, has come to us courtesy of the media. And it is through the media that our impressions of the uprising have accreted via image and text. Jayce Salloum, a Lebanese-Canadian artist; and Elia Suleiman, a Palestinian filmmaker living in New York, have taken on our accumulated (mis)impressions by tracing their genesis in cinema and television. This highly kinetic tableau of appropriated sights and sounds works most earnestly to expose the racial biases concealed in familiar images. The storehouse of misconstrued ideas about Arab culture is shown in all its cinematic splendor, from the denigrating seraglios in films such as Elvis Presley's  Harem Scarum and Valentino's The Sheik, to the dehumanization of Arabs as evinced by epics like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Speaking for oneself... it would be compelling if it were nothing more than this compendium of Arab stereotypes, but it is much more. Taking snippets from feature films (Exodus, Lawrence of Arabia, Black Sunday, Little Drummer Girl, etc.) and network news, Salloum and Suleiman have constructed an oddly wry narrative, mimicking the history of Mideast politics. Through key political phrases... we see repetitive distortions transformed into foreign policy. The injustice, of course, is that this is our history of their struggle. Speaking for oneself... is a first attempt at making the image and the act one and the same."

— Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archives

ϟ

Ouroboros, 2017, 75 minutes. Dir. Basma Alsharif.

Ouroboros is acclaimed visual artist Basma Alsharif's first feature film. This experimental film is an homage to the Gaza Strip and to the possibility of hope based on the eternal return. The film follows a man through five different landscapes, upending mass-mediated representation of trauma. A journey outside of time, marking the end as the beginning, exploring the subject of the eternal return and how we move forward when all is lost.

— Momento Films

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Jayce Salloum

Jayce Salloum has been working in installation, photography, mixed media and video since 1975, in addition to curating exhibitions, conducting workshops and coordinating cultural events.  Salloum is known for installation works that sensitively investigate historical, social and cultural contexts of place. The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, Salloum studied in the United States. Evolving what now epitomizes nomadic practice, Salloum has lived and worked in several Canadian and US cities but was most influenced by his time in Beirut. The central themes played out in his work include questions of exile, ethnic representation and notions of identity. Exhibiting nationally and internationally, his work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou, among other institutions. In 2014, Salloum won a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Elia Suleiman

Elia Suleiman (Arabic: إيليا سليمان, IPA: [ˈʔiːlja sʊleːˈmaːn]; born 28 July 1960) is a Palestinian film director and actor. He is best known for the 2002 film Divine Intervention (Arabic: يد إلهية), a modern tragicomedy on living under occupation in Palestine which won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Suleiman's cinematic style is often compared to that of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton, for its poetic interplay between "burlesque and sobriety".

Kori Miles

Kori is an interdisciplinary and process-based takataapui artist, currently working and living on sacred Wurundjeri land in Naarm/Melbourne. They are of Maaori (Ngaati Raukawa, Ngaati Ahuru, Tainui/Waikato), Italian, Scottish & Anglo-Celtic descent, but born and raised in so-called Australia. They predominantly utilise performance, installation, sculpture, photography, video and poetry as mediums to explore/articulate ideas, knowledge and stories.

Kori’s practice is guided by the stories of Maaui—the trickster demigod of Maaori mythology—and how Maaui’s clever wit combined with the powers of shape-shifting and interdimensional travel are used to undermine structural authority and cause a paradigm shift in power distribution - a social and systemic change that benefits those with less privilege and access. Kori’s practice manifests visions that confront the ongoing damage of colonial and heteronormative social structures, whilst concurrently fostering a space for contemplation on transgression, eroticism, liberation, humour, healing, regeneration and resilience.

Lucie Loy

Lucie Loy is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator and writer (currently) based in Northern NSW and Naarm (Melbourne). Alongside her independent practice which spans visual art, publishing, writing and curating she has committed much of her professional capacity to platforming independent, artist-led and experimental practice. Through her work with artist-run projects locally and internationally, Lucie has explored notions of the ‘artist-led’, platforming the importance of art and artists critically and creatively addressing global and social struggles. Working with the aesthetics of hope, resistance and imagination, as well as through policy advocacy, activism and frustrating bureaucratic frameworks, Lucie’s practice and work seeks to explore the intersection of art, political ecology, social and environmental justice and postcolonial globalisation. Lucie is interested in collaboration, ideas of the commons and critical, transdisciplinary projects. Her recent research explores biopolitics, notions of power and the philosophies and contexts of post-truth.