Jumana Emil Abboud (1971)
جمانة إميل عبود
Lives and works in Jerusalem
Jumana Emil Abboud engages drawing, video, performance, objects, and text to navigate themes of memory, loss, and resilience. Abboud has participated in numerous international group exhibitions including exhibitions in France, Jordan, Norway, Austria, Palestine and Spain. Her solo exhibitions include Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine at Kunstraum (England); BALTIC at Gateshead (England); O whale don’t swallow our moon! at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in 2016; The Horse, the Bird, the Tree and Stone at Umeå (Sweden) in 2017; The pomegranate and the sleeping ghoul at Darat Al Funun — Khalid Shoman Foundation (Jordan) in 2017; in addition to the 53rd and 56th Biennale di Venezia (Italy) in 2009 and 2015; Qalandiya International in Palestine in 2012 and 2016; Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj in Ramallah (Palestine); Living Together Performance Festival at MOAD DADE College in Miami (United States); and BMW TATE LIVE EXHIBITION, 10 Days 6 Nights at Tate Modern (England) in 2018.
Capture of the original work, on the left. An Untitled Life-Drawing, 2007.
AN UNTITLED LIFE-DRAWING, 2007
Originally commissioned for the 9th Lyon Biennial in 2007, Jumana Emil Abboud’s three-channel video An Untitled Life-Drawing brings together videos of the objects and people encountered in daily life. These are juxtaposed with videos documenting the writing and drawing of these same objects. As a kind of mimetic, semiotic experiment, Abboud’s video offers us fragments of life in a way that asks us to think about forms of representation. Yet the video moves beyond a mere exercise in conceptual play between language and the visual — beyond a collection of objects as an archive. The video offers us markers and memories of objects associated with her lost Palestinian homeland.
