2014

Remake, c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e,

Brussels, Belgium

PRESS RELEASE

Dear Ghita,

My apologies for taking so long to write to you. For some time now I haven’t been able to write, to make images, or even read. When I finish something and undertake another work, there is a period of silence ! It is not because I have nothing to say, but rather because I await the moment to say well what I want to say. There are moments for creating and one has to prepare oneself for that ! No ?

As you know, I am working on an exhibition in Brussels. The title I have chosen is Remake. I like verbs as title for my works, for me the title is important. It is a piece amongst the others at the exhibition, it’s the one we see most ! You do not choose a title for an exhibition, but you work the title of the exhibition.

You asked me to send you images, but as I have not yet finished the work, I will try to give you an idea of what I am going to show.

The idea of the exhibition comes from an accident that occurred. My hard drive broke down and in it I lost a video that has been shot with Larbi Yacoubi* in his apartment, erasing his diary. The video, which deals with memory, has evaporated from the whole of my production. At that moment, I became aware of the fragility of the medium I use and thus of all of my production. After long reflections and hesitations, I decided to remake the same video. But what I thought was easy, proved complicated at the moment of production. Larbi was very tired and could not work like the first time I filmed him. I had to wait for a long time and go back and forth between Brussels and Tangier several times before I was able to produce the remake of the video. I like the last version of the video I am showing in this exhibition more. Because time has enriched it, there are layers that have added themselves, and then I am interested in the idea that the original video does not exist anymore, and that there is only the remake, the copy of the original ! That’s how a banal technical accident can provoke interesting and profound questions, and, instead of being a handicap, it becomes a motor, not only to counter the problem, but to overcome it.

I just finished « Lettre de Tanger », a film that I show at the exhibition. The film is made up of a letter addressed to my friends who host me for the exhibition, with sequences that I have filmed at the Gran Teatro Cervantes of Tangier and with Larbi Yacoubi. It is a film about the journey of images, the difficulty of working, and the boundary between fiction and documentary. « Lettre de Tanger » analyses the failure of creating a fiction film when reality is more complex, to be reduced to a documentary work.

As you are not able to come to Brussels to see the exhibition, I hope you can form an idea through these words.

Hope to see you very soon, Hamza

* Larbi Yacoubi is an actor and costumier of theatre and cinema