Rituals of resistance : four works by Nada El-Omari

“I think language is a body that travels around with me, looking through whispers and lands, grabbing onto my hand, always looking over my shoulder.” (from where to where من وين لوين d'où vers où)

Nada El Omari makes home(land) movies. Across her five short films – four of which are now available to watch on Vithèque – her family, her home, and the land of Palestine form a collage of textures that materialize the politics of memory. In eva (2018), Yaffa (2019), from where to where من وين لوين d'où vers où (2021), and in the jasmine vines (2021), Nada interpolates fragments of memories and archives, which conjure a sense of longing (and right) to return. El Omari finds a sacred quality in the rituals of home-making at and away from home: making hummus in a food processor, waking to the sound of morning prayer, watching the ocean’s waves from the rocks in Haifa. This is resistance through ritual.

Within and across these four works, El Omari deploys a number of techniques, such as superimpositions, tri-lingual text-on-screen, drawing, and archives - notably those of her father, the filmmaker Majdi El-Omari. There’s a richness to her images in part due to these techniques, but also due to the political urgency pulsating through each film. Nada moves seamlessly through past and present, questioning the imperative of image-making along the way. What are we to do with the archives that bear witness if they are, systemically, met with indifference?

Sarah Foulkes
Collection and Sales Coordinator