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Al-Husayn, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the son of the first Shi‘ite imam, ‘Alî, was slaughtered alongside many members of his family in the desert in 680. This memory is torture to me. But, basically, one can say “this memory is torture to me” of every memory, since each reminiscence envelops at some level the memory of the origin of memory, the torture that had to be inflicted on humans in order to make them remember (Nietzsche). The memory that the yearly commemoration of ‘Âshûrâ’ is trying to maintain is not only or mainly that of the past, but the memory of the future, namely the promise of the Parousia of the twelfth imam, the long-awaited Mahdî—notwithstanding the passage of a millennium since his occultation—as well as the corresponding promise of Duodeciman Shi‘ites to wait for him. ‘Âshûrâ’: a condition of possibility of an unconditional promise.

Partial view of ‘Âshûrâ’: This Blood Spilled in My Veins, 2002: mixed-media work with 7 monitors, two 80-min videos and 5 looped videos (16 min; 16 min; 10 min; 7 min; 1 min), and 3 banners.

Exhibitions:
— Premiered at Contemporary Arab Representations, an exhibition curated by Catherine David, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 3 May - 14 July 2002.
— part of Contemporary Arab Representations, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 15 September - 24 November 2002.
— part of Synopsis II-Theologies, an exhibition curated by Anna Kafetsi, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 15 October 2002 - 5 January 2003.
— BüroFriedrich, Berlin, 7 December 2002 - 25 January 2003.
— part of Contemporary Arab Representations, BildMuseet, Umeå University, Sweden, 9 February - 21 April 2003.
— Plug In, curated by Mario Rizzi, Centre for Contemporary Art FUTURA, Prague, 7 May - 27 June 2004.