Riddles for the Road

Expanding from their usual ways of working, this exhibition presents Alex and Nour’s experimental audio pieces, a video, and a hand-drawn animation. Throughout their collaboration, they explored the manipulation and extraction of value from various contexts, aiming to create new meanings and question the significance of objects and situations when they are unplaced. The audio pieces weave moments captured intentionally or unknowingly from a certain time and place that are then edited or combined and planted in a gallery setting for a different audience. The pieces in the exhibition highlight the barrier between the self and external environment (e.g. fear, obstacles, comfort & safety), emotions in a state of navigation, and mediation between known and unknown environments.

For Alex and Nour, their mixed upbringing resulted in a weak sense of cultural identity. This shaped their world into an abstract one, void of values, appearing much more like a pinball game. In their work, the duo question values, perception, and re-constructed memories. What meaning and value can something carry when it is un-placed? When interacting with familiar and unfamiliar places, we shift and reconstruct our identities – our faces change in public and private spaces and when we feel like an insider vs. an outsider. We develop hopes and fears, superstitions and habits, attaching meaning to objects or places that can change the way we act. The artists drew from personal experiences of adaptation, weaving together personal narratives and reconstructed memories. They reflect on their process of removing themselves from a certain set of communication norms and into another, for example, talking to children, speaking a different language, or using a new medium.

The obstacles the pair encountered throughout their journey took on a life of their own, informing and supporting their exhibited material. While Alex sat in a taxi doing trigonometry after getting soaked in a thunderstorm only to nd out the wood store was closed, and they do not cut angles, Nour was still figuring out the logistics of travelling with temperature-controlled drugs. The pieces they created not only reflected their working relationship but also encompassed the entire experience from their initial meeting in ‘22 at Tesla Pub on Muvekita Street to the final installation. The exhibition represents a process of adaptation, transformation, and discovery for both artists. Through their artwork, they invite the audience to
contemplate the nature of value, perception, and the impact of one's surroundings on their actions and imagination.

Artists;

Alex Close
Nour Hassan

Press

Oslobodene Sarajevo Izdanje