Whitney Biennial 2017
Mar 17–June 11, 2017
Basma Alsharif
2
Floor 3
Born 1983 in Kuwait City, Kuwait
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
In her sprawling, feature-length film Ouroboros, Basma Alsharif pays homage to the Gaza Strip in an allegorical narrative that posits the end of civilization is also its beginning and that hope can emerge from destruction. Evoking the symbol of the ouroboros, a serpent devouring its own tail, the film alludes to the cyclical nature of both life and history via the epic journey of the heartbroken protagonist, Diego Marcon.
Diego’s travels meld disparate locations into a single landscape; he traverses the ruins of the Gaza Strip, Indigenous territories in North America, Southern Italy, and the French region of Brittany through a narrative that exists out of time, bound to repeat itself in perpetuity, creating a circle of amnesia as survival. Ouroboros positions us to consider hope, loss, and fragmentation, both from inside and from the margins of the wreckage.
Screenings: April 29–30
Ouroboros, 2017
Basma Alsharif (b. 1983), still from Ouroboros, 2017. High-definition video, color, sound, approx. 80 min. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Imane Farès, Paris