We Interrupt This Program (2020)single-channel digital video, color, sound
15 minutes

The liberation of sex and the liberation of land are entangled together in the 70s and 80s in Lebanon, with the unlikely marriage of a Lebanese sex symbol and a Palestinian militant. This anthology of video works appropriates digitized archives that point to cultural transformations and revolutions that continued throughout the Lebanese Civil War. The project is informed by family anecdotes, scattered archives, and sparse historical records, and sourced materials include documentary films, reportage, TV broadcasts, music, and music videos concerning fabled stories around the Munich massacre, and about the entertainment industry, espionage, and assassinations during the war. While it concerns larger regional politics, it does not embody an ontological, political argument but instead constructs a personal history of Arabhood. In its attempts to make sense of these stories, the work becomes a kind of fiction. Each film leans into entropy, uncovering and inventing sexy mythologies around wartime, beauty queens, and imperiality.

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