It’s still raining!

After we finished at Kiasma, we headed across the road to Amos Rex, a private museum set up by a wealthy businessman. Being private, there was is no free entry! The museum was named after the publisher and arts patron Amos Anderson. It was located at a nearby site from 1965 to 2017, and the new museum opened in 2018 in a subterranean building under the Lasipalatsi plaza, with some parts of the ‘roof’ poking through. It is a very impressive space.

The current exhibition was one by Palestinian-Danish artist Larissa Sansour. The past, the present and possible futures meet in this darkly expressive exhibition, which seeks to make a space for new ways of thinking about contested geographies and histories. Sansour’s video works and installations interweave contemporary politics with imagined realities, using the narrative methods of sci-fi, documentary and opera. The works deal with topics such as the Palestinian people’s loss of their land or the threat of ecological catastrophe, and develop into studies of grief, memory, and inherited trauma.

The trajectory of the exhibition guided us through the seven works on display, all based on large video installations. The narrative progressed from the deep burden of trauma to the exhilaration of a moon landing. In the first exhibition hall there was a sculptural work, Monument for Lost Time, a large gaping black hole. This was a companion to “In Vitro”, a video piece set in the aftermath of an ecological disaster. Both works embody the core of the exhibition: - unfathomable trauma of loss that burrows into the cells of our bodies, and our corresponding longing for wholeness.

Next there was an Arabic-language opera piece, As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, which revolves around the grief of a mother. There was also an installation of bronze sculptures titled “Archaeology in Absentia”, as well as a sci-fi video trilogy: - (1) In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain, (2) Nation Estate and, (3) A Space Exodus. They all deal with the power exerted by history writing and the formation of identities. The final video, A Space Exodus, the oldest work in the exhibition, references Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In it, a spaceship carries Sansour through space to the surface of the moon.

All the works by Larissa Sansour, were provocative and moving and quite emotionally draining. Her works are derived from her lived experience and heritage, which she addresses using diverse experimental narrative means. She was born in East Jerusalem and grew up in the town of Bethlehem. Sansour’s works create a distance to talk about the complexities of the conflict in Palestine that has gone on for a century.

We finished our visit with a walk through part of Amos Anderson’s private collection, which he donated to the museum.Read more