The futures of major cities and refugee camps are foretold in the politically charged new exhibition by Palestinian artist Wafa Hourani, which runs at Gallery One, Ramallah until June 23.In this exhibition, the artist worked mostly with sculpture and model-making to create pieces that speak to both current political situations and future ones. The “Future City” series features the architectural models that Hourani is most famous for, depicting major cities in 50 years' time. The artist's preoccupation with the changes brought about by time makes his works addressing the Israeli-Palestinian situation all the more tragic. In one work, Hourani creates three versions of the Qalandia refugee camp on the West Bank, labeled 2047, 2067, and 2087 respectively. However, they all show the same space utterly unchanged — a bleak reminder of the violent stalemate that the country faces.Other models consider a Palestine reimagined. In “Cinema Dunia,” Hourani constructs a cinema demolished during the first uprising against the Israelis in 1987, screening within it a film comprising videos from the Palestinian Cinema Archive. The model cinema is decorated with posters of non-existent movies that represent a Palestinian film industry that could have been, but never was.If “Future City” represents Palestine’s future and “Cinema Dunia” its past, “Palestine Martial Arts” is a monument to the country's present. This work features wire sculptures, a common medium for Hourani, of life-sized men and women throwing stones — a form of protest that the artist considers integral to how Palestine is perceived.“Wafa Hourani: The Future of Disappearance” runs through June 23 at Gallery One.
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