Possibilities of a banana to tell a story
Video-Performance Installation
2016.
The project Possibilities of a banana to tell a story is based on the real-life story of the artist’s grandfather, who was a transport driver during the British Mandate. In this work, the artist follows the events of the last nights during which he had made the drive from Nazareth to Beirut. On these trips, which took place on the eve of the British departure and the eruption of the War of Independence/Nakba, the grandfather had witnessed killings, violence, and expulsion, and at times even picked up refugees to his truck. However, in his stories, the grandfather tends to omit these traumatic incidents in favor of joyous and yearing references to the bananas he used to eat throughout these trips. In her sketching, the Artist recreates the route of the transport truck, and in each of the stops her grandfather had made his way to Beirut, she stops sketching in order to eat a banana. On the background of the grid borders between today’s Nazareth and Beirut; and the traumatic experiences buried in the grandfather’s memory from the trips between the two cities, the banana becomes a symbol and the act of eating turns into an act of commemoration.

