Locomotion

Can we recognize the dimensions of our bodies without their relation to the place where there are?

Our connections with the place might be complex; as the need for leaning on it is equal to the need of liberating from it. The perpetual physical and mental movements reshape this relationship, a never-ending repositioning.

Sulafa Hijazi applies different methods in her two pieces:

The «read shoes» Video art

And «Positioning» Augmanted reality print

Based on images she took from her neighborhood in Berlin. The <socialist> architecture along the Karl-Marx-Allee, known for its East German military parades as well as the demonstrations in 1953 and 1989 evoke memories of houses constructed in Damascus during the era of the emerging Baath Party, reflecting the idea of modernity. The architecture and spatial arrangements are composed of strong rigidness, which is mirrored in the means of her work: digital grids.

The App for the augmented reality piece «Positioning» invites people to interact with a square image consisting of architectonical and digital grids to explore the movements of the bodies in their attempts to free themselves and to find a place in the given frameworks.

The video piece borrows its title «The Red Shoes» from the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson: a girl puts on red shoes, which are cursed: she cannot stop dancing.

Rayelle Niemann, July 2018