Jumana Emil Abboud:
Out of the Shadows III

Jumana Emil Abboud:
Out of the Shadows III

In Out of the Shadows III, Jumana Emil Abboud asks “What do places speak of?” This audiovisual performance includes Palestinian folktales and traditional oral histories. The stories that inspire the artist have always emphasized the importance of relationships with the landscape and with sources of water. Evoking her Palestinian roots and the places to which she is deeply connected—Jerusalem, Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Galilee—the artist uses music, poems, and drawings to weave together past and present, contemporary reality and the unseen world, with its jinns and ghoulehs. For this world premiere, Abboud collaborates with Issa Freij, and the artists reflect on their experiences during a four-year film project as they searched for the haunted sites of which the tales tell. Their interactive storytelling explores folk customs, sacred objects, and enchanted locations to underscore themes of memory, loss, and resilience. 

Born in 1971, Jumana Emil Abboud lives and works in Jerusalem. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice, Sharjah, and Istanbul Biennials, the Bahrain National Museum, and the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. Recent solo exhibitions and performances of her work have taken place at BALTIC, Gateshead; Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah; Bildmuseet, Umea; and The Khaled Shoman Foundation-Darat al Funun, Amman. Born in 1956, Issa Freij is a Palestinian photographer, filmmaker, and musician, also living and working in Jerusalem. During the last two decades, Freij has worked in photojournalism, and on documentary, short, and feature films; he has worked for CBS News, Channel 4, BBC Discovery, and ARTE France, in addition to working on films for The Palestinian Museum, Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, Yabous Cultural Centre, and Al-Ma’mal Foundation in Jerusalem.

Jumana Emil Abboud: Out of the Shadows III is part of Living Together, curated by Rina Carvajal, MOAD’s Executive Director and Chief Curator, and independent curator Joseph R. Wolin. Living Together is made possible by the generous support of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council.