'Hopscotch (The Centre of the Sun's Radiance)', sound installation, exhibited at 'After the Last Sky, de Appel', Amsterdam, 2023. Image credit: Özgür Atlagan. Courtesy of Inas Halabi.
Photo Credit
The Centre Does Not Hold is an exhibition in three parts by the Palestinian artist Inas Halabi. Across a sound installation and two moving image works that address different regions mired in colonial power structures, Halabi considers the landscape as a living archive from which to excavate the (in)visible sediments of trauma and slow violence. In its invitation to look closely, The Centre Does Not Hold surveys the malleability of sound and image, and in doing so, unearths histories hiding in plain sight.
Installed at Enjoy is Hopscotch (The Centre of the Sun’s Radiance) (2021), a seven chapter soundscape from which the exhibition takes its title. A two-channel sound installation with video, the work takes listeners on a sonic journey across two continents—Africa and Europe—to explore how histories of labour tied to the development of the railways are embedded in the contemporary landscape. Foregrounding a kind of opacity, or a refusal of the primacy of visual representation, the work considers how sound can transform into an image. Through field recordings, oral histories and radio broadcasts, Halabi traces the extraction and transport of uranium from the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a former UMHK-owned uranium refinery in Olen, Belgium. This journey across language, land and interlocutor examines how the past continues to inflect the present. Borrowing its title and structure from Julio Cortázar’s eponymous novel as well as the playground game, Hopscotch* shifts between several chapters whose beginnings and endings are never the same, disrupting the notion of linear time that structures historical as well as train-based narratives. The second part of the title is taken from Patrice Lumumba’s independence speech of 1960, in which he vows to make the Democratic Republic of Congo “the centre of the sun’s radiance for Africa,” and to “keep watch over the lands of our country so that they truly profit her children,” reflecting the ongoing struggle for economic as well as political independence from colonial oppressors.
*Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, a Belgian mining conglomerate that controlled and operated the (primarily copper) mining industry in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1906 and 1966. An iteration of the corporation is now known as Umicore.
Curated by Jess Clifford
Inas Halabi
Inas Halabi (b.1988, Palestine) is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her practice is concerned with how social and political forms of power are manifested and the impact that overlooked, or suppressed, histories have on contemporary life. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, and completed the De Ateliers artist residency in Amsterdam in 2019. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: Luleå Biennial, Sweden (2024); Reel Palestine Dubai (2024), TAVROS Athens (2024), Sharjah Film Platform 6, UAE (2023); Beirut Art Centre (2023); Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2023); de Appel, Amsterdam (2023), Showroom, London (2022); Europalia Festival, Brussels (2021), Silent Green Betonhalle, Berlin (2021); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2020); and Film at Lincoln Center, USA (2020). She lives and works between Palestine and the Netherlands.
Jess Clifford
Jess Clifford is a writer, editor and curator from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, to where she has returned after several years working in art galleries and museums in London, most recently for Tate. She works for CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image and is the editor of their forthcoming survey publication. Recent curatorial projects include To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space (2023); and I’m so into you, The Physics Room (2024).
Opening Hours
- Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm
- Saturdays, 11am - 4pm
Address
- 211 Left Bank
- Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
The Centre Does Not Hold is an exhibition in three parts by the Palestinian artist Inas Halabi. Across a sound installation and two moving image works that address different regions mired in colonial power structures, Halabi considers the landscape as a living archive from which to excavate the (in)visible sediments of trauma and slow violence. In its invitation to look closely, The Centre Does Not Hold surveys the malleability of sound and image, and in doing so, unearths histories hiding in plain sight.
Installed at Enjoy is Hopscotch (The Centre of the Sun’s Radiance) (2021), a seven chapter soundscape from which the exhibition takes its title. A two-channel sound installation with video, the work takes listeners on a sonic journey across two continents—Africa and Europe—to explore how histories of labour tied to the development of the railways are embedded in the contemporary landscape. Foregrounding a kind of opacity, or a refusal of the primacy of visual representation, the work considers how sound can transform into an image. Through field recordings, oral histories and radio broadcasts, Halabi traces the extraction and transport of uranium from the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a former UMHK-owned uranium refinery in Olen, Belgium. This journey across language, land and interlocutor examines how the past continues to inflect the present. Borrowing its title and structure from Julio Cortázar’s eponymous novel as well as the playground game, Hopscotch* shifts between several chapters whose beginnings and endings are never the same, disrupting the notion of linear time that structures historical as well as train-based narratives. The second part of the title is taken from Patrice Lumumba’s independence speech of 1960, in which he vows to make the Democratic Republic of Congo “the centre of the sun’s radiance for Africa,” and to “keep watch over the lands of our country so that they truly profit her children,” reflecting the ongoing struggle for economic as well as political independence from colonial oppressors.
*Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, a Belgian mining conglomerate that controlled and operated the (primarily copper) mining industry in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1906 and 1966. An iteration of the corporation is now known as Umicore.
Curated by Jess Clifford
Inas Halabi
Inas Halabi (b.1988, Palestine) is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her practice is concerned with how social and political forms of power are manifested and the impact that overlooked, or suppressed, histories have on contemporary life. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, and completed the De Ateliers artist residency in Amsterdam in 2019. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: Luleå Biennial, Sweden (2024); Reel Palestine Dubai (2024), TAVROS Athens (2024), Sharjah Film Platform 6, UAE (2023); Beirut Art Centre (2023); Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2023); de Appel, Amsterdam (2023), Showroom, London (2022); Europalia Festival, Brussels (2021), Silent Green Betonhalle, Berlin (2021); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2020); and Film at Lincoln Center, USA (2020). She lives and works between Palestine and the Netherlands.
Jess Clifford
Jess Clifford is a writer, editor and curator from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, to where she has returned after several years working in art galleries and museums in London, most recently for Tate. She works for CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image and is the editor of their forthcoming survey publication. Recent curatorial projects include To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space (2023); and I’m so into you, The Physics Room (2024).
