Soliloquy, a double-screen projection, follows a veiled woman, the artist herself, taking parallel journeys in two different cultural landscapes. In one video she is depicted in a middle eastern city on the edge of the desert (Mardin, Southern Turkey), while in the other she is in a western metropolis (NY). For most of the duration of the work, the action in the films alternates between the two settings. When the woman on one screen is active, walking from place to place, her counterpart in the other projection stays still, often staring directly at the camera and thus appearing to watch her alter ego on the opposite screen. At these moments her face seems to register recognition and longing. The mirroring and doubling effect in Soliloquy relates to cultural critic Edward Saidʼs description of the state of exile. In his essay «Reflections on Exile», Said (1935-2003) wrote, «For an exile, habits of life, expression or activity in the new environment inevitably occur against the memory of these things in another environment. Thus both the new and the old environments are vivid, actual, occurring together contrapuntally».
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