Randa Maddah

Light Horizon

A woman meticulously tidies up the room of a ruined house in the village of Ain Fit in the occupied Syrian Golan. The Israeli forces destroyed the village in 1967, as was the case for many other villages. Inhabitants were prevented from returning to their homes, fleeing to Syria’s refugee camps, separated from the rest of their families. Randa Maddah was born in one of the few remaining villages, Majdal Shams, located on the cease-fire line from where she could contemplate the inaccessible ‘other side.’ A fixed camera films the artist doing housework in a ruined house, refurbishing it with floating curtains, a table, a chair, and a strange object that looks like a bomb. After she finishes her work, the artist sits and contemplates the horizon towards Syria where, at that time, Syrian refugees from Golan were suffering the hardships of war. The video performance Light Horizon connects the exiled from both sides of the border through the empathic process of creating a mirror image where everyday life resists oblivion. By creating familiarity in the midst of tragedy and destruction, by maintaining the property of the uprooted, by ritualizing their lost lives, the work calls for their return.