The Hole’s Journey

2020 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

<p>16:13 minutes</p>

Ghita Skali

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The Hole’s Journey by Ghita Skali follows a complex political satire involving a worn-out floor, a political activist, and the Ouled Sbita tribe of Morocco. For 23 years, the director’s chair at an international art institute in the Netherland’s scratched the wooden floor below it. For Skali’s project, a 102 cm x 120 cm section of this scratched floor was cut out and mailed to an expropriated region in Morocco. In this area, members of the Ouled Sbita tribe have been fighting against pending laws that threaten to ban communal ownership over land allocated to them by the State, which has since sold the tribe’s land to implement real estate projects. For Skali, the cut segment of the wooden floor with visible traces of the director’s chair is a symbol of institutional power. Addressing issues of land expropriation and privatization, the artist uses this symbol to illustrate the disparities that exist within contemporary societies, in the art world, and between governments and the people they govern. The film traces the journey of the floor section from the Netherlands to Morocco during the initial lockdown period at the beginning of the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, at a time when travel was heavily restricted. Woven into this narrative is the story of the artist’s friend Omar Radi, an investigative journalist and activist for issues of land expropriation in Morocco, also demonstrates how power can be an abusive tool. Radi was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of espionage and sexual assault, however critics claim that the charges are politically motivated and are retaliation for Radi’s outspoken dissidence. Using sharp wit, personal stories, and playful editing, the film seamlessly blends all of these seemingly disparate narratives and protagonists.

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Ghita Skali is a visual artist that uses odd news, rumors and propaganda to disrupt institutional power structures such as the western contemporary art world, state oppression and government politics. Her work often ends up as a strong critique with outcomes that penetrate channels that go beyond the exhibition space taking the form of informal trade of goods, legal documents, and things you take home for a warm night tea.

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Colors:

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• power.n.01
• geopolitics.n.01
• institution.n.01
• land.n.01
• expropriation.n.01
• authority.n.01
• dissidence.n.01