Shaza Omran ~ We lived well together
Shaza Omran's "We lived well together" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 4, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani & Giulia Crispiani.
Here you will find the documentation of Shaza Omran's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.
We lived well together
Shaza Omran's question: Do you know where it actually began?
Shaza's s introduction: The Syrian have never initiated the fight; thus it is not a “civil war” as depicted by western media. The true story of the Syrian conflict, unknown to many outside Syria, began with an innocent act of political disobedience in 2011. Children in the city of Dara’a expressed discontent with the authoritarian Syrian regime by creating graffiti on a school wall. The regime’s violent and disproportionate response triggered the escalation of these strife into a full-blown civil war.
The short video animation constitutes a hint of this story in non-linear fragments of the Syrian society landscape, presenting the act of cultural disobedience and protest as the unintentional catalyst for the revolution, understood by the Western world through the simplistic paradigm of “Syrian civil war.”
The work invites recipients to revisit the everyday hard reality that hangs over Syrian society and examines the cultural movements that triggered the response by the Syrian regime that escalated the conflict into a civil war.
Bethany's report: The audience is invited onto the stage, stepping into an intimate and contemplative space. The atmosphere is shaped by a carefully crafted soundscape. Black drapes hang around the stage, concealing a series of paintings behind them. The audience is encouraged to move freely, discovering the works at their own pace. Each artwork, revealed slowly, presents delicate and evocative charcoal drawings and paintings—often bodies merging, entangling, embracing, encircling, and knotting. Traces of erasure and redrafting remain visible, layering the images with a sense of history and process.
Each painting is illuminated by the torchlight of a person standing nearby, as though guarding and caring for the image. Their presence is steady, their attention focused. The guardians’ stillness imbues the space with a sense of collective witnessing, providing both acknowledgment and care to the images. A voiceover gently resonates through the space, narrating: "To tell their stories. The day will come." The words guiding the audience through the unfolding experience. A reader moves across the stage, their words and narrative tying together the images, words, and audience in a shared experience.
As the audience continues to explore, the stage transforms with the projection of an animated video on the screen at the back of the theatre. It begins with the tranquil sounds of nature—wind rustling, birdsong—but this calm is ruptured as the images shift. Bombs fall on a city. Tanks roll through streets. A face appears, tears streaming, and then transforms into a glowing moon, casting light over a darkened landscape. Children run, their movements urgent and fluid, as the animation transitions seamlessly from one image to the next. The haunting imagery builds a stark contrast with the stillness of the stage and the quiet, reverent presence of the audience.
Ramon Amaro: Ramon opened his response by reflecting on the many layers of influence the work had on him, engaging with it on artistic, aesthetic, spatial, and compositional registers. He highlighted the transference between mediums—moving from canvas to screen—while retaining techniques like hand-drawn charcoal, which transform differently when digitized. This interplay fascinated him, particularly the haptic quality of the materials transitioning across forms.
Once he immersed himself in the works, Ramon was struck by the intimacy unfolding within each canvas and how their complexity deepened as he moved through the space. He described a pivotal moment at the back of the stage where the works came to life for him, evoking his personal love of kineticism. Observing the works in motion, he likened the experience to flipping through a sketchbook, where still images transform into a three-dimensional narrative. This interaction liberated his perspective as a spectator, blending his perception of movement with the rhythms and choreography of audience participation.
Ramon noted how the performance seamlessly integrated audience movement into the broader choreography of the piece. This dynamic, he said, made the contradictions and violences depicted within the works even more pronounced. The smoothness of the audience’s participation contrasted sharply with the rigidity and violence inherent in the imagery, creating a striking juxtaposition.
He likened the animation in the work to the style of William Kentridge, a South African artist known for his hand-drawn, charcoal-based animations that explore political and human contradictions. Ramon commended the work for its clever engagement with histories of violence and its ability to transpose these narratives into a broader, universal resonance. He observed how the piece forced the audience into reflexivity, confronting them with entanglements of stillness, movement, and conflict.
Drawing on Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Ramon elaborated on the concept of entanglement. He quoted Barad’s idea that entanglement is not merely the intertwining of separate entities but a state where individuality is presupposed by relational experiences. He connected this to the work’s ability to evoke a sense of collective entanglement, where boundaries between self and other dissolve into a shared space of interaction and renewal.
Ramon reflected on how these entanglements are shaped by destruction and renewal, a "neurotic cycle" that defines human relationships with violence, trauma, and memory. He invoked Fanon’s theories on violence, suggesting that true freedom requires detaching oneself from the expectations and legacies of violence. For Ramon, the work exemplified this counter-violence through its generative and loving entanglements, offering lessons in devastation while simultaneously resisting its hold.
He acknowledged the immense difficulty for artists working within these themes, noting the tension between creating for the present and sketching visions of the future. Ramon concluded by encouraging the artist to continue exploring their creative practice, even in the face of overwhelming global violence. He urged them to carve out space for the imaginative, even in a world fraught with conflict, leaving with the hopeful message: “Find the space for that snapping turtle outside of this fire.”
Inti Guerrero: Inti reflected on the depiction of bodies within the work, emphasizing the subtle coloring and angelic quality imbued in the drawings. This evocation, he suggested, carried a profound and haunting significance.
He referenced a parallel to a Pasolini film, [possibly Che cosa sono le nuvole? (1968)] where puppets controlled by a patriarchal puppeteer start to rebel as the audience becomes increasingly frustrated with their governed movements. Unlike Pasolini’s narrative, Inti observed that in this performance, no overt play was unfolding. Instead, the piece delved into what he described as the "backstage" or the spaces where things happen behind the scenes. This shift emphasized the intense production occurring outside of the visible stage and the often-overlooked forces shaping what is presented.
Inti discussed the broader context of denialism in the current world, pointing out how wars and global crises continue to unfold beyond the stage, often neglected or de-prioritized. He observed a dynamic where certain narratives are elevated, while others, equally deserving of attention, remain obscured. This tension was, for him, mirrored in the performance’s ability to provoke reflection on these absences.
Inti concluded by acknowledging the profound contextualization the performance offered, particularly in its ability to situate the audience within these layered, nuanced narratives.
Antonia Majaca: Antonia began by expressing her deep admiration for the presentation, describing it as beautiful and strikingly effective, especially given its improvised nature. She acknowledged the challenge of adapting painterly, two-dimensional works into a theater or performance space and commended the artist for embracing this unconventional approach.
She reflected on the softness conveyed by the unframed canvases suspended on curtains, noting how this presentation created an intimate, ongoing sense of process. For Antonia, this setup allowed the audience to glimpse the artist's journey, as if peering through the crevices of their evolving practice. She praised the individual works, describing them as mesmerizing and capturing a profound resonance.
Drawing on a prior discussion about the voice and its representational capacity, Antonia likened the repeated image within the works to a voice in its purest form—an exorcism, a blind spot, or a rupture that resists representation. She highlighted the power of repetition in the artist's method, noting how the same image emerged in various iterations, creating a sense of endlessness. For Antonia, this single image served as a kind of truth, an unwavering focus that the artist didn’t need to abandon or replace. She remarked that the image, despite its repetition, felt perpetually fresh and timeless, incapable of being fully captured or overshadowed by any other representation.
Antonia reflected on the arbitrary nature of the image itself, suggesting that its power lay in its simultaneity of being specific yet universal, personal yet arbitrary. She saw this duality as the core of its truth, emphasizing how the artist conveyed their truth in this particular moment through the repetition of the image.
As she concluded, Antonia acknowledged the emotional depth of her response, noting that it brought her to a fragile place. She reiterated her admiration for the work and encouraged the artist, affirming their ability to communicate something profoundly meaningful through their practice. "You're doing it," she said, recognizing the achievement of their expression.
AEROPONIC ACTS 2024 ~ Chameleon Orbit
About Shaza Omran