Based on a fictional framework conceived by the exhibition’s curators, Songs of Loss and Songs of Love raises some pertinent questions about the (im)possibility of cultural exchange. Fiction is employed as a form of alternative storytelling through which one could better appreciate the achievements and shortcomings of an era. The exhibition is based not on facts but on an almost-event and what could have happened since. Therefore, while the artworks are indeed in the museum and while the visitors do in fact walk around tangible objects and experience them in space and time, this exhibition merges the realms of fiction with reality engulfing the visitors as participants within an imagined encounter.

*image (left)
Raed Yassin,
Ruins in Space (detail), 2014.
Mixed-media installation, dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Athens.