Traversing the Reimagined Palestinian Neighbourhood - Zain Al Sharaf Wahbeh
'Traversing the Reimagined Palestinian Neighbourhood' demonstrates the environmental changes of Zain's home country from a local perspective. The project acts as a form of cultural restoration in the face of catastrophe, destruction and pain.
Screening Room Programme
Online
27 September 2021 - 18 October 2021
Selected by Carolina Lio and Katerina Matheson
"I have actively confronted the dissolution of the Palestinian vernacular under the Zionist colonial occupation, through multidisciplinary archival practices... this audiovisual experience attempts to recapture the essence of what is physically unsalvageable under a brutal colonial occupation."
The process of creating this film involved many archival sources, but also a personal volition to connect with Zain's own cultural roots. Her interpretation was consolidated by detailed research which she illustrated as components and then extruded into digital models. This coalition of visual and sensory information was given a second life through the means of rendering software and animated as a seamless film format. Zain remarks that the virtual journey "...not only introduces typical Arabo-Islamic design features like window grills and traditional shopfronts, but also domestic furniture that was characteristic of Arab Palestine before the 1948 exodus". Overall, Zain achieves a marvellous and intriguing form of digital storytelling which informs on personal and vernacular foundations.
Zain Al Sharaf Wahbeh was born in Jordan and raised in the United Arab Emirates. She is a London-based Palestinian researcher and designer, carrying out her postgraduate degree in Architecture at the Royal College of Art.