body in context I

The woman as an occurring subject in my installations or performance work is represented as living in a state of occupation. This occupation or occupying force is issued through political conditions within her environment and this results in influencing the otherwise peaceful quality of her world. There are both private and public elements that manipulate this world.
 

The basket head - Basket, 2003

The occupying force has many facets: it can take the shape of physical tangible realities of the everyday, such as in a wall of concrete, a fence, a checkpoint, a curfew, a barrier of stone - or it can reassign the force unto a face of a child, a home, a language, and cultural, traditional expectations. There are limitations on her personal freedom as well: the woman, the mother, the lover, the guide, the protector. She seeks justice and longs for change. She is not blind to the opponents around her and pushes forward with enduring strength – and at times, she feels that it is almost as if she has to assume a sort of madness in her behaviour so that she can live unharmed by oppression, in an attempt to always protect those she loves from negative forces of fear.
 

The concrete foot - Crossroads, 2003

In my art works, the woman I represent lives in a world that attacks her values, her love, her spirit on a daily basis, and for this reason, she is in a state of occupation – and her world could be here in Palestine or elsewhere; and despite all, she looks towards her future with a smile.

In the photograph “Untitled”, 2005, I am photographed wearing a gentlemen’s suit complete with a formal tie, but I am wearing the suit backwards.
 

dark - Untitled, 2005

In this work, I am attempting to express the masculine dominance that is so prominent within our culture, but my wearing the suit backwards is my own intervention, commenting on the necessity to view things otherwise and from a non-masculine-dominated perspective. The gentlemenʼ s suit does not have any particular cultural identity and could be worn by any man from anywhere within the world.

The subject/woman I represent in the majority of my work is weighed down with oppression but is filled with ambition; she is saner than she should be and yet she is also a little mad. She is both fragile and strong, she is fully aware and responsive, and she is constantly on the move. And every move she makes, every act, is an act that exhibits awareness towards her surrounding environment, while simultaneously being an act of revolt towards social orders/conditions.
 

hoovering the desert - Vacuum, 2007

In the new video project, “Vacuum”, 2007, commissioned by the 8th Sharjah Biennial, I am seen in a desert landscape, attempting to vacuum the sand of the desert. It is an endless process, as I move across the sands in a continuous vacuuming motion, in an attempt to question how much life is given and how much taken?
 

hoovering the desert - Vacuum, 2007,
video installation

Works and text by Raeda Saadeh, Jerusalem, Palestine, 2003/07 

FEATURED THEME ON CITY SHARING

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