{"id":9766,"date":"2012-05-02T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T05:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dvblog.org\/?p=9766"},"modified":"2026-09-30T10:39:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:39:33","slug":"more-larissa-sansour-happy-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/?p=9766","title":{"rendered":"More Larissa Sansour – Happy Days<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Larissa<\/a>
\n Larissa Sansour: A Happy Days (2006, 13MB, 2:57 min)<\/a><\/p>\n

Following on from the work we showed last week from the
\nexcellent Subversions show, here’s another piece by
\nLarissa Sansour<\/a>.
\nThis is featured in the other UK show featuring work
\nfrom the Arabic speaking world, this time specifically
\nfrom artists with roots in Palestine, Navigations<\/strong> at
\nthe Barbican<\/a> in London.<\/p>\n

There’s some tremendous work on show there, not least this
\none – all the work Sansour I’ve so far seen has delighted me
\nby being much better than a verbal description might lead one
\nto expect. So with this one you might hear: <\/p>\n

“To the tune of the theme from Happy Days Larissa Sansour
\nedits together stills of herself, a Palestinian woman,
\nin various locations in the occupied territories.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And you might think:<\/p>\n

“Ho-hum, seen it all, virtuous agit-prop, with the usual sledgehammer irony”<\/em><\/p>\n

and you would be totally wrong<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Of course the irony is there, and anger, of course, but
\nthere’s a lightness of treatment – the Sansour “character”,
\nthe everyday found surrealism of some of the shots, the
\nlittle jokes (the titles: “The Palestinian”
\n – “The Israeli Army as…Itself” &c.)
\nwhich, without negating any political content, makes the
\nwhole thing richly human and a pleasure to watch and watch again.<\/p>\n

Navigations is definitely worth a visit – there is a great variety
\nof very engaging work.
\nTwo complaints though – unlike the lovingly assembled and spacious show
\nin Manchester, Navigations feels like a somewhat cramped and token
\nfootnote to the “proper business” of the Palestine Film Festival<\/a> –
\npublicity for it only appears on the Barbicam website in this context.
\n(Better than a couple of weeks back when a search for “Navigations” on the Barbican
\nwebsite yielded precisely – nothing.)
\nThis is disrespectful to artist moving image work in general and
\nalso, I think, to the artists concerned.
\nSecondly the fact that it sits, looking a tad temporary, on the
\nbusy walk-through mezzanine on four small identical screens, with long
\ncompilation times, gives it an anthropological rather than an art
\nexhibition character, whilst the (yawn!) Bauhaus blockbuster takes place
\nupstairs in the galleries proper. This is again disrespectful to
\nthe artists and specifically to them as Palestinian artists:
\nfootnotes, curiosities, on the margins.
\nWork of this strength and diversity would have made a great large scale
\nshow.
\nWhat a shame that the Barbican, with all its resources, doesn’t
\nseem to understand both why and how it should have attempted something
\nsimilar.
\nNonetheless, if in London, you should go!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larissa Sansour: A Happy Days (2006, 13MB, 2:57 min) Following on from the work we showed last week from the excellent Subversions show, here’s another piece by Larissa Sansour. This is featured in the other UK show featuring work from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,1,62,71,31,47,29,86,22,18,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-arts","category-controversy","category-exhibition","category-music-video","category-observational","category-performance","category-place","category-politics","category-satire","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9766"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11628,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9766\/revisions\/11628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}