Ruanne Abou-Rahme &
BASEL ABBAS

Palestinian artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme work together across a range of sound, video, image and text practices. In their own words, their projects “express the baffling contradictions and disruptions of the Palestinian experience, past and present, and the relationship between the actual, imagined and remembered”.

Ruanne Abou-Rahme

Ruanne Abou-Rahme was born in Boston in 1983 and grew up in Palestine, where she lives today. She received her BA in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, London (2001-2004) and her MA in Independent Film, Video and New Screen Media from the University of East London (2005-2006).

She frequently collaborates with Basel Abbas on installations and live audio-visual performances, previously performing together with "Ramallah Underground" and most recently co-founding the audio-visual group "Tashweesh".

Abou-Rahme contributed visual works to "The Tangible", a TG Stan theatre production directed by Frank Vercuyssen, which premiered in Bergen, Oslo, Antwerp and Paris (2010). Her feature-length documentary, “Double Exposure” won Best Foreign Documentary award at the Terra Di Tutti Film Festival (Bologna, Italy 2008) and is touring various cities in Italy for the Flores in Piemonte: Moving Film Show (2009-2010). It was also selected for screenings at the 11th International Panorama of Independent Filmmakers, Patras, Greece (2009); Flores Film Festival, Turin, Italy (2009); Marxism Festival, London (2009); Flying Broom Film Festival, Ankara, Turkey (2008); Festival De Rio, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (2008); and STRIKE: Centre Sociale, Rome (2008).

Abbas and Abou-Rahme have performed with Tashweesh at The South Bank Centre in London as part of Poetry International; at the Glasgow CCA, Edinburgh College of Arts; and IMAGES Festival Copenhagen (2010).

Other recent exhibitions and performances include "Arabicity" curated by Rose Issa Projects at the Beirut Exhibition Center and the Bluecoat Art Centre, Liverpool (2010); Poetry International, The South Bank Centre, London; the installation "Contingency" for "Future Movements – Jerusalem" at the Liverpool Biennial (2010);  "Collapse" at the Freies Museum Berlin (2010); three installations ("Collapse", "Contingency" and "Horizons") at the Images Festival, Copenhagen; “Contingency”(an 8-minute, 4-channel sound installation in collaboration with Ruanne Abou-Rahme), at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2010); “Collapse” (a 9-minute, single-channel sound and video installation with Ruanne Abou-Rahme) at Cinema Now, Cambridge Film Festival (2009) and the Delfina Foundation, London (2009); “Ramallah Syndrome” (a 13-minute, 6-channel sound installation with Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Sandi Hillal and Alessandro Petti), at the 3rd Jerusalem Show, Al-Ma’mal Foundation, Jerusalem (2009), the Palestinian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); and “Ramallah Syndrome” (a 40-minute live audio-visual performance with Ruanne Abou-Rahme) at the S.A.L.E., 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) and the 3rd Riwaq Biennale, Bier Zeit, Palestine (2009).

Abou-Rahme also performed with the Ramallah Underground at The Forum, Melbourne Arts Festival, Australia (2009); the Taybeh October Festival, Taybeh, Ramallah, Palestine (2009); Sfinks Festival, Antwerp, Belgium (2009); Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival at The Bluecoat Gallery (2009); an extensive tour of Italy in 2008; and a show at the Beursschouwburg Centre,  Brussels (2008).