Jumana Manna
born 1987 in USA,
lives and works in Berlin.
Film and sculpture artist. Her works often confront the themes of the body, nationalism and history. Graduate of the National Academy of Art in Oslo and the California Institute of the Arts; her works have been exhibited at Performa 13, Home Works Forum VI, Berlinische Galerie, and the ICA in London, among others. In 2015, Manna will open her solo show at the Chisenhale Gallery in London. In 2012, she was awarded the title of the Young Palestinian Artist of the Year by the A.M. Qattan Foundation.
In the work “Blessed Blessed Oblivion” Jumana Manna portrays a group of men that live in the Arab area of Silwan in East Jerusalem. The place dominated by violence, drugs and crime, openly sexist and misogynistic language, and criminal code of honour reveals an unknown face of Jerusalem, a city generally considered as holy and a place of worship. Following her protagonist Ahmad with a camera, Manna observes the places where the men gather – a car wash, a barber’s and a gym and in this way documents the world that a young woman in Jerusalem usually cannot access. The film expresses the fears and dreams of the city, burdened with symbols and plunged in conflict, which is sliding into the lethargy of “blessed oblivion” and the unclear desire of heroic resistance – expressed by the poem that Ahmad recites: Abd al-Rahim Mahmud’s “The Martyr” from 1936. The film openly borrows inspiration from the avant-garde, music-based and dialogueless film “Scorpio Rising” by Kenneth Anger from 1963, a work that portrays the culture of Los Angeles motorcyclists full of love for the male icons of their times, such as Marlon Brando and James Dean. The two films share the cult of manhood and strongly perceptible eroticism.
