How to Time Travel presents a series of commissioned and selected works that explore themes of estrangement and displacement and propose ways in which the dimension of time conditions re-orientation and belonging.
The participating artists, hailing from various trajectories and working across multiple disciplines and mediums, were invited to propose works that act as homing devices, defined as vehicles, instruments, rituals, or tools for navigation and orientation.
Within this framework, a new notion of home emerges — one that transcends the physical and spatial realm confined by national borders, and is instead understood as a vast terrain composed of lived experiences, encompassing all affinities and connections, sensations and sentiments, objects and emotions, as well as recollections and visions. Implicit in this definition is an introspection about the elements that tether us to the world and to one another.
In this sense, acts of approaching home — contemplating, seeking, finding, understanding, remembering, and imagining it — often encompass a non-linear movement through time that does not solely rely on nostalgia but also invites speculative visions for the future.
While the resulting works manifest as tangible objects — a reconstructed or deconstructed painting, a deck of cards, or a book — their journeys involve an interplay between fact and fiction; the protagonist of their time-bending narratives often being an imagined or reconstructed archetypal figure such as an olive tree, a distant sound, a father’s painting, or a grandmother’s prayers and stories.
The works are thus derived from a layering of real and made-up worlds where historical facts are altered, embellished, or intentionally omitted, and where lived experiences are narrated and re-narrated, manipulated, or made-up altogether.
Curator: Rana Beiruti
With contributions from Ranwa Abughoush and the MMAG team
Participating Artists: Bady Dalloul, Hescham Alkarshan, Mazen Kerbaj, Noor Bseiso, Nour Bishouty, Raafat Majzoub, Shireen Mufti, and Tamara Kalo.
Curatorial text from MMAG Foundation
Image: Noor Bseiso. Approaching Haifa. 2023. Detail. Installation view of How to Time Travel at MMAG Foundation, Amman, 2024. Photography by Emad Zyoud. Image courtesy of MMAG Foundation
