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The Room, 2004
Single-channel video, 11' 12''
Courtesy of the Amal Kenawy Estate and Darat al Funun – The Khalid Shoman Foundation
About the work
Amal Kenawy: Frozen Memory
3 November 2018 - 19 January 2019
Bait Al Serkal
Curator: Hoor Al Qasimi
‘I may have a heart that beats… a heart that carries out its functions… but I cannot confirm that I am alive, for the emotions that continuously inhabit my body turn it into nothing more than a mere physical shell, into a barrier that separates my inner being from the world around me.’
Amal Kenawy
In her single-channel video, The Room, Amal Kenawy perceives herself as an independent entity containing a set of laws that rule and govern her body as a physical being, but she still rejects the idea that these rules convey her true nature or correspond to her feelings about life and non-existence.
In an attempt to understand and shape her realisation of the human self beyond the confines of her body and within a broader existential context, Kenawy employs abstract images that alternate between memories, dreams and the reality she lived—images that she considered an expression of her true self.
