Roy Dib: Selected Works

Overview

On both formal and conceptual levels, artist and filmmaker Roy Dib challenges common notions of space and boundary, weaving together archival material, scripted text and hypothetical circumstances to chronicle the political narratives of our day.

Dib’s Close to Here (2017) explores an enduring sense of longing, loss and absence in the face of uncertain return. The theatrical work is set in a nearby city, where times of peace are few and far between. Most inhabitants go to war; some die in battle, while others disappear, their presumed fate only marked by their absence. Those who remain in these cities have developed a tradition, in which funerary rehearsals are performed the night before loved ones depart. Close to Here is confined to the story of a city that is consumed by the melancholy of its own people. The performance is a collaboration between Julia Kassar, Lina Sahhab, Sandy Chamoun, Liliane Chlela, Fouad Afra, Bashar Farran, Sana Romanos, Riccardo Clementi, Krikor Jabotian and Roy Dib. Close to Here will be presented at the Sharjah Institute for Theatrical Arts on 10 March at 10:30 pm and 11 March at 3:00 pm.

Here and There (2017) extends Dib’s narrative engagement with spatial demarcation and political reality through consideration of material culture. In a corridor in Al Mureijah Square hangs a monumental curtain sewn together and made from durable outdoor materials used for awnings and balcony shades that shield people from the sun in Levantine countries. Echoing the set for Close to Here, this curtain, which will remain installed throughout the duration of the biennial, functions as both a relic of the performance and homage to those cities where such fabrics have been raised in the streets between neighbouring buildings. A ubiquitous sight in the urban landscape of cities not far from here, such curtains now offer cover to residents from a far more imminent threat than the sun.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 13.