Complex Spaces Exhibition -Visual Illustrations -Passive-By Mariam Nashef

Mariam wandered the streets of the old town of Taybeh with her personal camera at the beginning of 2019. Coincidentally, during her tours she noticed a fateful change in the memorial monument of the martyr Rafat Zuhairi, killed during the Land Day protests of March 1976, as well as to its surrounding city square.

Mariam says that at first she could not determine her position towards this change, thinking she would maybe not have noticed it, as so many others had not, if it would not have been for her walks through the town. After a while, she began to realize there was something wrong with the new memorial and she started to ask questions: Who is the person or authority that decided to take upon itself to make such a radical change to one of the town’s landmarks? Did this kind of transformation happen only to this particular monument, or did other landmarks undergo similar overturns?

The work produced by Mariam deals with personal questions stemming from the effect of passive refraction protracted on different scenes across the town of Taybeh, on the individual memory as well as on collective memory, through the transformation of the occupied village into an occupied city, topographically and spiritually.

Mariam travels with her statue made of gyps to various locations in Taybeh, so that the statue witnesses the changes the town and its surroundings are going through.

To watch the video please click on the following link