Nation Estate (2012)

Sansour’s interdisciplinary practice engages with contemporary geopolitics and cultural identity in relation to the unstable situation in the Middle East through various media including video, photography and installation.

Nation Estate (2012) explores ideas of architecture, border crossings and restrictions, access to resources, and community and identity evidenced in shared histories, built heritage and food culture. It addresses a key theme which is concerned with boundaries and movement and the restrictions placed on the everyday lives of Palestinians, proposing a satirical solution to the current political deadlock as a single high-rise building containing a Palestinian ‘homeland’. This fantastical solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict is a disturbingly dystopian vision in which the inhabitants’ local areas are digitally reconstructed inside a tower and the water supply is sponsored by NGOs. Nation Estate is Sansour’s most ambitious and sophisticated film to date.

Over the past two years the Imperial War Museum and Wolverhampton Art Gallery have partnered to research and collect a body of work focussing on the Arab / Israeli conflict, which included a visit to Palestine in April 2013. Sansour’s work will form a key part of this important and challenging group of works

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