Ahlam Shibli. Phantom Home

The photographic work of Ahlam Shibli (Palestine, 1970) addresses the contradictory implications of the notion of home. The work deals with the loss of home and the fight against that loss, but also with restrictions and limitations that the idea of home imposes on the individuals. Examples of places where the problematic is encountered include the occupied Palestinian areas; monuments
that commemorate members of the French Resistance against the Nazis together with French fighters in the colonial wars against peoples who demanded their own independence; the bodies of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders from Eastern societies; and the communities of children in Polish orphanages.

Death, Ahlam Shibli’s latest photographic series especially conceived for this retrospective, shows how Palestinian society preserves the presence of the “martyrs”—in the artist’s own words. Death contains a broad representation of the absent ones through photographs, posters, graves and graffiti displayed as a form of resistance.

The exhibition includes six of the photographic series produced by Ahlam Shibli during the last decade. Most of the works are accompanied by captions assigning each photograph to a specific time and place in an investigative process that often implies long empirical and conversational contact with the subjects in question.

CURATORS
Carles Guerra, Marta Gili, João Fernandes and Isabel Sousa Braga.

PARTNERS
Exhibition organised and produced by the Jeu de Paume, Paris, the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and the Fundaçao de Serralves-Museu de Arte Contempoânea, Porto.
In partnership with A Nous, ParisART, Time Out Paris.