‘A Close and Unbreachable Distance’: Witnessing Everything and Nothing

Authors

  • Christopher Harker Department of Geography, University of British Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v6i1.765

Keywords:

Jayce Salloum, Soha Bechara, Lebanon, intimacy, subjectivity, spatial, witnessing, Arabic culture

Abstract

This paper began life as my attempt to bear witness to untitled part 1: everything and nothing, a videotape made by Vancouver based artist Jayce Salloum. However, in doing (or attempting to do) this, I found myself bearing witness to a great deal more. Because in approaching Salloum’s tape, I couldn’t help but encounter Soha Bechara, the ostensible ‘subject’ of the piece. And meeting Soha also meant coming across Lebanon, albeit an always-already partial version. Working my way through these entanglements, I dwell on intimacy as a form of relating, and the proliferation of subjectivities that everything and nothing enacts. And in recounting the intricate spatial formation that developed as a result of this process, I also want to argue that enactments of witnessing are both inherently geographical and affectively charged.

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How to Cite

Harker, C. (2015). ‘A Close and Unbreachable Distance’: Witnessing Everything and Nothing. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 6(1), 51–72. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v6i1.765