Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

Video installation,
Super 8 mm film transfered on DVD,
Sound Dolby 5.1, 2003
3 min

On August 19, 1985, Khalil’s Uncle, Junior Kettaneh, was kidnapped during the Lebanese civil war. He is still officially reported missing today like 17 000 others lebanese.

In March 2001, the artists stumbled across the archives, photographs, and films that once belonged to Khalil’s uncle. Among his things they found one “latent film,” a super-8 that remained undeveloped. It had been stored in a yellow bag for fifteen years, surviving the ravages of the war and a fire that devastated the house where it was kept.

Joreige and Hadjithomas considered for a long time whether or not to send the film to be developed; whether or not to take the risk that these latent images might reveal nothing. After much hesitation they decided to send it to the lab.

The film came out veiled, white, with a barely noticeable presence that vanished immediately from the screen. The artists searched within the layers of the film itself, attempting to create the reappearance of a presence, of images. After much work on color corrections, an image appears through the witness, an image is still there, a lasting image that refuses to disappear.

A shadow, a hand can be seen, a boat, the port of Beirut, the roof of a house; a group of three persons, soon joined by a fourth. A lasting image evoking the impossible morning of wars of which memories are denied.

Other installations for Lasting Images
180 Seconds of Lasting Images