Ismaïl Bahri

The past is always out of reach, yet we’re always pulled towards it. Ismaïl Bahri's poetic film plays with this paradox. We see two hands holding a photograph which is illuminated by strong light from two sides, blinding us to its contents. Only the shadows cast by the hands reveal what is hidden by the light: a crowd gathering on 20 March 1956, Tunisia's independence day. A synaesthetic gesture, where seeing is enabled by touch.

The past is always out of reach, yet we’re always pulled towards it. Ismaïl Bahri's poetic film plays with this paradox. We see two hands holding a photograph which is illuminated by strong light from two sides, blinding us to its contents. Only the shadows cast by the hands reveal what is hidden by the light: a crowd gathering on 20 March 1956, Tunisia's independence day. A synaesthetic gesture, where seeing is enabled by touch.

A piece of blank white paper placed and pulsating before a camera’s lens attracts a crowd of passers-by in Tunis, the simplicity of the conceit slowly opening up to a profound reflection on the nature of cinema itself (both its creation and its collective viewing) while tracing the forms of a particular social and political landscape.

A piece of blank white paper placed and pulsating before a camera’s lens attracts a crowd of passers-by in Tunis, the simplicity of the conceit slowly opening up to a profound reflection on the nature of cinema itself (both its creation and its collective viewing) while tracing the forms of a particular social and political landscape.

A piece of blank white paper placed and pulsating before a camera’s lens attracts a crowd of passers-by in Tunis, the simplicity of the conceit slowly opening up to a profound reflection on the nature of cinema itself (both its creation and its collective viewing) while tracing the forms of a particular social and political landscape.

Through the simple, repetitive process of crumpling a page from a magazine, Revers contemplates notions of disintegration, reproduction, transmutation and, centrally, impermanence. The video repeats the crumpling and subsequent straightening of the pages, highlighting a ceaseless cycle. As each page is slowly crumpled time and again, the imagery fades, and we are left with the imprint on the artist’s hands—the result of repetitive contact and the residual accumulation of heat and information.

"This piece, with the generic title Film, is a series of short videos built around one protocol: a snippet of news from a newspaper of the day, is rolled up and then placed on a black-inked surface. On making contact with the liquid, the roll opens and of Its own accord frees itself of the gesture that fashioned it. As it comes alive in this way, the sliver of paper reveals Its hitherto unexposed content; this unpredictable kinematics is evidence of the constant impermanence of news. As well as exploring a certain archaeology of cinema, the mechanism references the passage of time: the ink, whether it is poured or printed, is the ink of ongoing human history." –Ismaïl Bahri

Orientations is made of three sequences filmed by a subjective camera that recounts a wandering in the city of Tunis. The off-screen reflected in a glass filled with ink is used as a compass and an illusory float with a funambulistic progression. In this very simple optical device, the appearance of city fragments gives directions and stretches the horizon. A walk of short-sightedness and a gathering of images of the overflowing and distraction of senses.

Resonances starts with the prospecting of the bathroom from the artist’s childhood. Black inked words written in Arabic on the bathtub surface scatter and propagate progressively. They resonate and echo night scene recollections. Transformed in a resonance chamber, the bathtub mixes the fluids of these evanescent thoughts. By reflecting its surroundings, the ink blurred water surface, overturns and clouds the words. The backward surge of the night reveals the scars of a troubled universe, verging on obliteration.