Screening of Ismyrna at Whitechapel Gallery

Film Screening

Ismyrna, 2016
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
50 minutes
Zilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery, London

Joana Hadjithomas and the artist and poet, Etel Adnan, met 15 years ago. They quickly became close, sharing a city that they had neverbeen to: Smyrna, Izmir,in Turkey. Joana’s paternal Greek family were forced into exile from Smyrna by the Turkish armies after the end of the Ottoman Empire. Etel’s Greek mother, was also born in Smyrna and was married to a Syrian officer of the Ottoman Army and exiled in Lebanon after the fall of the empire.

Etel and Joana lived in an imaginary Smyrna, today called Izmir, without ever setting foot there. Nowadays, they are confronted with the transmission of History and question their attachment to objects, places, imaginary constructions and mythologies without images. What is to be done with the sorrow of our parents? Even if it constituted us, how to live today, out of the nostalgia as Etel would say, in the eternal present? Their personal experiences, their stories serve as a background to the region’s changes after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the evolution of the borders questioning the notion of identity and belonging.

Conversation

Following the screening, Artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige are joined in conversation with Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Book Launch

Accompanying the screening is a book launch of Two Suns in a Sunset. A publication functioning as a guide for the eponymous exhibitions as well as a monograph of the artists' work, Two Suns in a Sunset, written in the three languages of the artists— Arabic, French and English—includes contributions by Hoor Al Qasimi, Philippe Azoury, Omar Berrada, José Miguel G. Cortés, Okwui Enwezor, Marta Gili, Boris Groys, Nat Muller, Anna Schneider and Brian Kuan Wood.

Organised by Whitechapel Gallery and Sharjah Art Foundation.
For further information and to purchase tickets please visit Whitechapel Gallery.