Overview

Wael Shawky introduces Emily Jacir

About the work:

Lydda Airport is a single-channel animation that is part of an installation that also includes a sculpture. Lydda Airport takes place at the eponymous location sometime in the mid to late 1930s.Built in 1936 by the British, Lydda Airport was an important stop along the ‘Empire Route’ for their national airline, Imperial Airways. Until 1939 it was the world’s largest aerodrome. Central to the film’s narrative is Hannibal, one of the eight planes that made up the Handley Page fleet which were the largest passenger planes in the world at that time. In 1940, Hannibal mysteriously disappeared somewhere over the Gulf of Oman on route to Sharjah. The film was also inspired by Edmond Tamari, a transport company employee from Jaffa, who received a communication that he should take a bouquet of flowers to Lydda Airport and wait for the arrival of Amelia Earhart in order to welcome her to Palestine. She never arrived. On 11 July 1948 Lydda Airport was captured by the Israeli Defense Forces and renamed Lod International Airport. In 1974 the airport was renamed Ben Gurion International Airport.

This work has been screened internationally at various galleries and museums including Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); Darat al Funun, Amman (2014); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012); Sharjah Biennial 10 (2011); 29th Sao Paulo Biennial (2010); among others.

Screening Information

Lydda Airport (2009)
Emily Jacir
Palestine, USA
Experimental | 5 minutes
No dialogue

This screening is part of the Genealogies in the Middle East and Latin America project, which explores historical and contemporary relationships between artists from these two regions. It unfolds along narratives revealed by the artists' personal accounts that provide critical alternative perspectives and insights by decentralising dominant narratives, schools and paradigms produced and affirmed in the West.

To watch the film screening, click here.