Echoed Narratives: Inside the Your Ghosts Are Mine exhibition with Matthieu Orléan

Q: What was the inspiration behind the Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voicesexhibition and how did the title come about?

Matthieu Orléan: The show was first showcased at the ACP-Palazzo Franchetti in Venice to coincide with the 60th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

I was invited by Qatar Museums (QM) and the Doha Film Institute (DFI) to create something that reflects QM and the DFI’s deep engagement with moving images—both cinema and video art. I know there are a lot of films that are on the side of independent cinema for DFI, and they produce movies from the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia—in countries where it is often difficult to produce movies on your own due to lack of public funding. These movies are not always broadcast in theatre, and it was a big challenge and a responsibility to highlight these art pieces, in the context of the Venice Biennale.

The Biennale that year had a strong focus on the global South, offering space to voices outside the Western world. So, I think it was quite interesting to create a dialogue between different worlds, civilisations and artists. I was very much inspired by this project because it was transnational and very wide in spirit.

The title, Your Ghosts Are Mine, came later. It took a lot of time to go through all the movies and videos, and then, I realised that the ghosts were hidden everywhere and could definitively be at the center of the show. So, the title came quite spontaneously, quoting indirectly a dialogue from one of the movies presented in the exhibition, named Zanj Revolution by Tariq Teguia (2015).

I like the title for many reasons. There are many ghosts or djinns in the old ruins of the deserts (for instance like in The Dam by Ali Cherri, or in the video installation by Wael Shawky named Al Araba Al Madfuna III). They could be seen as a metaphor of your ancestors and your traditions (like the supernatural blast shaking the young heroine of Al-Sit by Suzanna Mirgahni). They could be compassionate sometimes, but if you listen too much to them and lose contact with your fellow humans, you could be led to madness and violence (like in Abou Leila by Amin Sidi-Boumédiène). The ghost has multiple faces.

I also like the idea of a phantom limb, meaning that something is both present and not present. In a way, never complete.

From a curatorial perspective, a Phantom limb is like hidden thematics, something that you can't really go through or express, but shape the project. That’s part of the emotional texture of the exhibition, especially in the Doha exhibition, where you begin with a spiritual, archaeological vision of the desert and you end with desert 2.0, which is a desert seen through the lens of the future with Sophia Al Maria’s beautiful video pieces.

I was very interested in the word ghost, as it is also from a movie and I thought it would be good to have it in the title and I came up with Your Ghosts Are Mine, and the idea of the words you and mine being a mirror.

It was quite interesting showcasing the idea of an inspiring dialogue between two people that could be the artist and the audience, the curator and the artist, and anyone else at the show.

Q: How did you approach selecting the long list of filmmakers and artists featured in the exhibition?

Orléan: Selecting is really the core work of a curator. The goal is to select based on the feeling, what you like and what you think is important, but also what makes sense together. Sometimes you must keep away some pieces that you really like as they are not connected to the rest. It comes down to these two things—how important, strong and emotional the pieces are, and how they create meaning together? An exhibition is like a body: it is architectural, creating a whole meaning, and as a curator, you must think of this global meaning.

In this exhibition, there were a few themes like some kinds of reflections on society and intimacy that were creating a body. QM has a huge collection of video art, and for the exhibition, I was in touch with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum. They shared their database, and we spoke about their collection. They gave me clues about the artist and links to see the videos. It was important to understand what it meant to them and the context of all these pieces.

The other part was watching movies from DFI. I already knew some of them because of my job. I watch a lot of movies and in Paris, you have a lot of movies coming from the Middle East and North Africa, but I discovered many new filmmakers, often young and very talented.

What I knew quite quickly was that video arts should be shown as the artists want, in a display that has been thought out by them. You can make an interpretation, but you can't change the context, and you have to respect the sense of time and space desired by the artists. Concerning the movies, on the contrary, the idea was to select good excerpts (as the films are long features and can’t be shown entirely) and to come up with display layouts created with the active complicity of the Cookies agency, which designed the show at Mathaf. My idea was to have a different display in each room: sometimes two screens, sometimes four, sometimes five.

Sometimes these screens are synchronised, like in the Borders section, because they create a cohesive space. You will never see two similar displays, which was very important to me. I didn’t want monotony, but to confront the viewers with unexpected surprises.

Q: The exhibition spans several themes and genres. How did you bring about coherence or consistency across the diverse works that are presented?

Orléan: This is a difficult question. As I mentioned earlier, the diversity of the projects supported by the DFI is actually one of the exhibition’s strengths. They don’t just produce fiction; they also support animation, short and long documentaries, politically engaged films, and poetic fantasy films. Many of the movies explore mysteries of human beings, landscapes and territories, but they all have a place in society.

Take It Must Be Heaven by Elia Suleiman, even if it is fiction, it is deeply linked to the filmmaker’s own life and experience in Palestine, Paris and New York. Some elements are fictional, some are fantasy. Suleiman’s film is very political, as many other films and videos from this exhibition. It was key for me to choose edgy, daring projects that stimulate the vision of the visitors, and to allow new perspective and new framing of the world, and especially of the world of images.

In the Fires section, for instance, there's a sculpture with a little fireplace surrounded by screens. At one point, all the screens show the same image, followed by black screens and then show different films at once, creating a sequence. In the exhibition, I didn't want to mix documentaries and fiction. It goes from documentary to fiction. My idea is that when there are many screens playing together, I felt it would be quite strange and uncomfortable to have the real world and fictional films playing at the same time. It doesn't mean fiction is weak, it's the way people express themselves and if you put them together, it will look strange.

Another important one in this Fires section is the Tunisian movie Harka by Lotfy Nathan. It is a fictional film based on the beginning of the Arab Spring and shows the story of the guy that gets immolated in, Sidi Bouzid. It is based on real facts. In theFires section, Harka is in the middle to show  real events could be transformed into fiction. It was important for me not to mix up everything because you wouldn't feel too connected.

Q: How has the exhibition taken on a new meaning in Doha after its debut in Venice?

Orléan: I won’t say another meaning because it is the same exhibition. The society here is for sure very different from the European society—it has common points and differences. I guess some movies or videos shown here in Mathaf won't have the same impact as in Venice. I guess for some Middle-Eastern movies, the viewers here in Doha might be more connected to what they're seeing, as they share a knowledge of the language and the territory.

The only things I added are the two video pieces from Mathaf. One is Basim Magdy, the Egyptian artist’s Super 8 mm movie My Father Looks For An Honest City, which is quite cynical and strong about living in a big megalopolis where life is difficult. The other is Beirut, 1001 Views (2010), by Lamia Joreige, a video animation made with black and white photographs of the Beirut harbour.

In general, I didn't try to adapt myself to a new audience. Since I’m not a specialist in Qatari society, it is difficult to know how people visiting the exhibition will react. You try to be consistent with yourself, with the artists you're inviting, and with the people you're working with. I’m sure the visitors will learn a lot. They will be shaken and moved. Hoping so!

Q: Can you pick one or two pieces from the exhibition that really impacted you and why?

Orléan: There are so many, it is very difficult. All the movies were great, and I don't want to create a hierarchy. But I can speak about the two additional pieces I’ve already mentioned and that are part of Mathaf’s permanent collection. They are very strong in different ways.

One example is Basim Magdy’s film My Father Looks for an Honest City. It has the spirit of a family movie. I love the shots with the father in the suburbs of Cairo, with the light in the middle of the day, looking for a decent city. It’s very poetic. It speaks about his relationship with his dad, with the city, the ruins, and the new works being made there to create a new capital for the country. He plays with the texture of the image—sometimes the colours change and invade the screen.

Lamia Joreige uses photos of the harbour of Beirut port at different times in its history. She does not showcase them in chronological order, but you go very slowly from one landscape to another and feel the tension because some buildings disappear, some seem to be illusionary like a mirage or a nightmare, when it comes to the threatening helicopters looming in the sky. It is silent, unlike Basim Magdy’,s where sound treatment was important. It is also mysterious because you don't really understand what you are seeing; you need time. It says a lot about Beirut, the transformation of the port before the explosion, the present and the past.

Some artists are like magicians and can even connect to the future. I think Sophia Al Maria has this premonition in her when she speaks about Gulf Futurism and the way the Gulf countries are already living within the future imagined by the West. Wael Shawky’s piece is based on a fairy tale: he is shooting a community of kids wearing traditional clothes and performing as adults in the archaeological ruins of an old Pharaonic temple. Playing with sounds and inverting the colours, the video looks as if it’s coming from an ancient, mysterious galaxy, but also speaks about the heritage of this past, and the way memory can heal the present.

The artist as a magician is important for me—even if the world is not magical, we have to find our magician somewhere.

Vrinda Abilash is a Digital Editorial Coordinator at Qatar Museums.