The art of performance as a political act

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will present the exhibition May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth by the two artists Basel Abbas (*1983) and Ruanne Abou-Rahmes (*1983) from April 23 to June 26, 2022. The show focuses on various individuals who recount their experiences of violence, loss, displacement, and forced migration. The goal is to consider the art of performance -whether in the form of song, spoken word, dance, or gesture- as a political act in a time marked by myriad forms of violence. To this end, Abbas and Abou-Rahme have been collecting online footage of people singing and dancing in communal spaces in Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen since the early 2010s. The exhibition brings together these dancing bodies with new performances created by the art-makers in collaboration with dancer Rima Baransi and electronic musicians Haykal, Julmud, and Makimakkuk. According to Abbas and Abou-Rahme, torn communities would resist their own erasure through song and dance and reclaim space, themselves and the collective.

The artists Basel Abbas (born 1983 in Nicosia, Cyprus) and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (born 1983 in Boston, Massachusetts) have been creating works together since 2009 that combine hypnotic soundscapes with multilayered videos. They draw on Abbas' knowledge of sound and music production, on the one hand, and Abou-Rahme's experience as a filmmaker, on the other. The project May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth (2020 - ongoing) was commissioned by MoMA and the Dia Art Foundation and presented as both an online platform and a physical exhibition.