Bahrain Pavilion. XIII Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2012
Through seemingly random scenes of Bahrain landscapes, the installation evokes the construction of a collective imaginary of remote places through their fragmented appearance in the media and in our living rooms. The normally individual act of media imagery of the faraway is isolated and become a sensorial experience.
These images will add themselves to other images conjured in your head of this place; another set of mental images of place you might never visit, but that you will certainly construct an imaginary of. The installation shows a landscape transformed by the passage of time, the change of daylight, of season and by the succession of different moments of the day.
The sensation of being inside a real place, arbait a far away one, gives the installation a quality of pure context; and perhaps offers the viewer an experimental “memento”. Time will simultaneously pass in Venice and in Bahrain. The viewer will be part of a long “now” lasting as long as he has the patience to wait. Although the locations are but two points in space and time, projections share one proposed reality.
Design team: Matilde Cassani, Francesco Librizzi, Stefano Tropea
Photos: Giovanna Silva
Curator: Noura Al Sayeh
Client: Ministry of Culture Kingdom of Bahrain, HE Sh. Mai Bint Mohammed Al Khalifa
Dimension: 250 sm