Saraya
Video and sound, 4 min 26 s, 2020
Manar Zuabi selected Tomb’s title Carmel Forest due to its connection to Emile Habibi’s fantasy novel, Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter which takes place primarily on the peaks of Mount Carmel and the valleys in Haifa, where Maroun Tomb was born. Zuabi’s video work excavates the past, searches for it, and brings it to the present. The video makes connections between the act of excavating memories to trace Saraya, the girl he loved in his youth, until his daily anxieties pushed him to forget her. He neglected her, yet she appeared to him later in life when he was fishing in the village of al-Zib, a Palestinian village located on the Mediterranean coast, some fourteen kilometers north of Acre, near the entrance of Ras al-Naqoura. In producing this work, Zuabi reread Habibi’s tale to seek Saraya and herself— and for a past to which her roots extend. This brings her to question: “Who is Saraya and who is the Ogre?”
Manar Zuabi is a Palestinian artist, curator, activist and educator. Zuabi is one of the founders of the experimental school, Masar, in Nazareth. She holds a BA and MFA from the University of Haifa, as well as a degree in Contemporary Dance from Wingate Institute. She is currently a faculty member in the MFA program at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, as well as at Oranim College. In addition to publishing two catalogues, Zuabi has participated in international exhibitions. She works across visual art, live performance and video to pose questions of identity and culture, merging art and life from a political and social perspective.