We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the ones who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear
— Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck”, Diving into the Wreck (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013), 24.
And Yet My Mask is Powerful, a 5-channel video and installation initially inspired by Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck”, shows a keen eye for the diverse forms of violence around the globe and in the Arab world. The video shows the images that the artist collected from ruinous Palestinian villages juxtaposed with the texts from Rich’s poem. In addition to that, the artists have installed a group of objects including a camera, knife and a book of myth, all of which are mentioned in Rich’s poetic writings. The enlarged or contracted images of these objects created by shadows cast in the projector’s light also make a part of the work. Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme propose an instinctive and sensitive approach to Palestine, viewing it from a different perspective without a fixed idea of the place.
