con-formanceMohamed AbdelkarimBlue Gaze at the Future
Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila, room 5
free admission subject to availability
Interweaving legend and contemporaneity in an audiovisual con-formance that explores grief and hope through the figure of Zarqāʾ al-Yamāma.
Blue Gaze at the Future is composed of textual materials, reproduction of radio plays and visual materials that structure a theatre-like narrative, embodied in a lecture-performance. The con-formance starts with the legend of Zarqāʾ al-Yamāma, a woman who lived in the pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula and was known for her exceptional intuition, keen eyesight, clairvoyance and ability to foresee events before they occurred. Her fate was sealed by the tragic moment when her eyes were torn out while her tribe was being conquered. Tracing and contemplating the appearances of Zarqāʾ in contemporary literature after the events of 1948, 1967, 2013 and beyond, she explores how we can imagine a futuristic hope that addresses our grief and reconciles defeat, considering the notions of negativity, grief and defeat as rational apparatuses rather than psychic effects.
