Collaboration with Tarek Abouamin
Public site-specific audio/video installation
Location: Park Lane Mall, Halifax, NS
Dimensions: 20 ft x 10 ft
Materials: Projector, vellum, audio speakers
Completed: 2013
This project was a collaboration with Tarek Abouamin, an Egyptian-Canadian filmmaker and friend, who was born on Rue d'Armand in Alexandria, Egypt, and is currently based in Halifax, NS.
The work served as a response to the 2011 Egyptian revolution, which began on January 25, when millions of protesters from across the country united to demand the overthrow of then-President Hosni Mubarak. Tarek returned to his hometown to document the daily lives of its inhabitants, as well as the destruction wrought by the recent political unrest.
We grafted video footage—captured at a one-to-one scale—in and around Rue d'Armand onto the windows of a former Debut Fashions store located on the main level of Park Lane Mall in downtown Halifax. Casual shoppers were confronted with a portal-like screen, accompanied by audio that connected the seemingly disparate environments of a contemporary high-end shopping mall and the streets of Alexandria. The video played on an eight-minute loop, comprising six different clips, inviting viewers to engage with the realities of life in Egypt amidst the backdrop of their everyday shopping experience.