Rajwa Tohmé
WAJD - Installation - 2015
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 17
Wajd. This Arabic word is fraught with mystical connotations. Translating very approximately as “ecstasy” or “rhapsody,” Wajd is the opposite of Woujoud. Both words clearly have the same root, but one relates to material existence, the other seeks transcendence.
WAJD is an audiovisual, sensorial poem whose multiple elements mesh to communicate a state of ecstasy. A dark noisy corridor, which narrows like a loophole leads to a silent room. We leave behind the noises of the outside world and are immediately projected into a raw intimacy. At the end of the impasse, a looped, silent film illuminates the space. There are three visual layers. A town is built and violently demolished. A naked young woman caresses herself slowly, then faster and faster until she climaxes. A layer of coloured inks floats on water, alive with barely perceptible movements. Pleasure and colour against a backdrop of war, destruction and reconstruction. Three times, three spaces and three rhythms meld to translate the intensity of one state, Wajd. This moment when everything merges and we have the impression that our existence is linked to the entire universe, to the essence of life itself. Animated in real time by photos and drawings on the water, and filmed in overlay in 35mm on a caption stand, WAJD goes for broke and really does make these three layers coexist for a moment under the eye of the camera.
Rajwa Tohmé
Née en 1983 à Beirut, Liban. Vit et travaille à Beirut, Liban.
Ecole ALBA - Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts
2015 Wajd (Installation / Poème visuel) – Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing.
2011: Brainwash (Installation) - Sai_ Urban Gardens, Beirut, Liban.
2009: 4 murs et une ville (Livre d’artiste)- CCF, Beirut, Liban.
2005: _Confusion (Animation - 4”) - Berlinale Talent Campus, Berlin, Allemagne.
2005: Loulou et le ballon rouge (Animation - 6”) Festival de cinéma Né à Beyrouth, Beirut, Liban.
Production
Acknowledgments
Sara Sponga Javier Marin Leyton Karma Tohmé
