Video 4:00 Minutes loop
2020
2020
A reworking of Adrian Brunel's Crossing the Great Sagrada (1924), this piece assembles found footage from traveler-vloggers who journeyed to Syria in recent years, chasing narratives of an exotic and "safe" Syria, a narrative that quietly served Assad's regime as much as it served the travelers. Built entirely from adventurers' selfies, the video keeps them centered and framed against a country reduced to backdrop, their commentary mediating the view for us. Layered with clips from orientalist and post-apocalyptic blockbusters, the footage amplifies and echoes the travelers' own gaze. With Assad gone, what remains is a ghost apparatus, propaganda footage still running long after the regime that needed it has collapsed.
