Small Big Things
Jumana MannaMarch 20, 2019, 6 – 8 pm
As part of her residency at Dar Jacir, Jumana Manna will give an artist talk addressing the relationship between the mediums of sculpture and film in her work, and the potentialities of each in addressing relationships of power, contested narratives of modernity and materiality of place.
Manna´s films fuse documentary with staged scenes, biographical and archival materials, to investigate constructions of national and historical narratives. Her sculptures, more abstract by comparison, are often anthropomorphized combinations of valuable artifacts and everyday urban detritus. In her recent work, Manna has used both mediums to address historical narratives of the Levant and northern Europe as separate and relational geographies. These works have explored the ways in which economic, political and interpersonal forms of power condition architectural sites as well as human and plant life. Manna has a particular interest in the erasures that accompany various modern scientific practices of preservation; her projects challenge the binary constructions of unchanging authentic heritage on the one hand, and the embrace of innovation on the other.
Jumana Manna is a visual artist, raised in Jerusalem and living in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include: Douglas Hyde Gallery and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, 2018; Mercer Union, Toronto, 2017; Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK, 2015; Malmo Konsthall, SE, 2016; Beirut Art Center, Lebanon, 2015; and Sculpture Center, New York, USA, 2014. Manna has participated in group exhibitions in the Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2017), at Kunsthalle Wien, Liverpool Biennial, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Marrakech Biennale 6 and The Jerusalem Show VII, Al Ma’mal Foundation. Manna’s films have been screened in festivals such as the 54th Viennale International Film Festival, 66th Berlinale Forum and IFFR Rotterdam. She was awarded the A.M. Qattan Foundation´s Young Palestinian Artist Award in 2012, the Ars Viva Prize for Visual Arts 2017, and was nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst in Berlin in 2017.
Supported by the A. M. Qattan Foundation through the “Visual Arts: A Flourishing Field” project funded by Sweden.
