An Encounter with the Past, 2014
7 Video Installations in Wooden Boxes

For her installation An Encounter with the Past, Hind Mezaina draws on memories of the music she listened to and watched on television during her childhood in the UAE. At that time, watching television was a shared family activity with only a handful of channels to choose from. Mezaina has selected Arab music videos from the 1970s and 1980s, as that was the avenue through which she enjoyed music from the region. Meanwhile, she developed her love of Western music from listening to the radio and buying bootleg cassettes. 

The videos will provoke smiles of recognition and pleasure for those over a certain age, as they offer a moment of intimacy and nostalgia. 

Mezaina's personal selection embraces traditional Khaleeji singers in shiny thobes and majlis settings performing folk songs and pop groups in flares fusing Eastern and Western influences. It offers a cultural snapshot from the beginning of an era of rapid change in the region that has never really slowed down. Television would take on the role of transmitter and preserver of culture as a more settled and sedentary lifestyle evolved. 

Part of Encounter: Listening to the City exhibition, curated by Alexandra MacGilp.
More information about the exhibition can be read on my blog.