Ode to Elisar, 2023

Ode to Elisar is a performative multimedia video installation embodying the artist’s porous relation to her own physical boundaries and that of the compound’s. The performance annotates the displaced body’s constant search for a home, and its ritualistic act of movement and migration.

The artist’s body here, is as a tool of measurement as well as comprehension of one’s ownership of space within a shifting urban landscape. The act of then marking the physical dimension of the compound exterior walls with a chord, and embracing the self in various forms, personifies an uncomfortable shift in one’s relationship to memories of home.

The artist has actively engaged in the documentation of the interior compound space for two years. Experimenting with a multitude of photo and video methods to record a period of time in which the compound structure and plan began to shift. Having lived in what the artist describes as this ‘gated oasis’ since early childhood, this collection of visual and material references, here extends to a physical chord which weaves together these fragments of memory.  

This is an extension of a larger body of works exploring notions of home-sickness and home-making through photography, videography, performance, alchemy, archiving, weaving, sculpture and other material assemblages.

(This work was done as part of the Intermix Residency second edition). 

PRESS

Commissioned for the second edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale.
Showing 25/01/2025 - 25/05/2025


Reflecting on the flood of visual information in the age of the internet, Tamara Kalo’s practice questions humans’ ways of perception. The artwork is a contemporary adaptation of a historic instrument: Ibn Al Haytham’s camera obscura. Realized as a copper sculpture, it enables viewers to contemplate a live image of their surroundings through an upside down projection. The artist pairs Ibn Al Haytham’s discovery, who was also the first to formulate  that human vision is a result of light entering the eye and then processed by the brain, with copper crafts popularized during the Abbasid Caliphate (AH 132 - 656/750–1258 CE).


The artwork is an interpretation of the Qur’anic verse from chapter Al-Nur (24:35), in which Allah’s light is described as coming from a blessed olive tree that is neither in the west nor in the east. The two lenses of the camera are located opposite of each other, eastward where the sun rises, and westward, where it sets. The antiquated dichotomy of east and west, Global North and Global South, or up and down, and the illusion of past and future, is symbolically bridged. This act of reversal allows for alternative sensorial experiences and brings awareness to the complex and subjective processes of perception.

في إطار تأمُّلها في تدفُّق المعلومات البصرية في عصر الإنترنت، تستكشف تمارا كالو في ممارستها الفنية طرق الإدراك لدى البشر. يمثِّل هذا العمل الفني صياغة معاصرة لآلة تاريخية؛ وهي الكاميرا المظلمة التي اخترعها ابن الهيثم.

يأخذ العمل شكل منحوتة نحاسية، تتيح للمشاهدين التأمل في صورة حية لمحيطهم، معروضة بصورة مقلوبة. تربط الفنانة بين اكتشاف ابن الهيثم، الذي توصّل إلى أن الرؤية البشرية هي نتيجة لدخول الضوء إلى العين ثم معالجته بواسطة الدماغ، وبين الحِرَف النحاسية التي ازدهرت في العصر العباسي (132-656 هـ/750-1258م).

يشير العمل الفني إلى الآية القرآنية في سورة النور (24:35)، والتي تصف نور الله بأنه يوقَد من شجرة زيتون مباركة، لا شرقية ولا غربية. تقع عدستا الكاميرا مقابل بعضهما البعض، شرقًا حيث تشرق الشمس، وغربًا حيث تغرب. يتجاوز العمل الحدود التقليدية بين الشرق والغرب، أو الدول الغربية وغير الغربية، أو بين الأعلى والأسفل، ويفكّك الفاصل الوهمي بين الماضي والمستقبل؛ ليقدِّم رؤية رمزية ومتصلة بهذه المفارقات والتمييزات. يُتيح هذا الفعل العكسي تجارب حسّية بديلة، ويعمِّق إدراكنا لتعقيدات الرؤية وذاتيّتها.

Current Sea

2023 - Ongoing

This series of hanging textiles are embroidered glitches of the lebanese currency. the bills are transfigured into abstracted fluid forms through scanography, a tactile process producing a seemingly digital distortion. The work is a commentary on the economic crisis, it contrasts the devaluation of monetary worth with the value of the skilled labor force. The work is commissioned to local artisans to support craft during the current inflation.

Current Sea ٥٠٠٠٠
2024
Silk on cotton



Current Sea 20000
2024
Silk on cotton



Current Sea 50000
2024
Silk on cotton


Current Sea ٢٠٠٠٠
2023
Silk on Linen, 90x150cm 1/1



Current Sea 1000
2023
Silk on cotton, beads, mother of pearl

the green screen line 

2024

one channel video 37:21 (WIP)

this was a result of the NEOM research residency 2024 that took place between NEOM and Madrid, organized by E&C Neom, Alserkal Advisory and TBA21.