Poetics of exile

Poetics of exile: the unfamiliar space of waiting is an exploration of a multitude of ways to convey the feelings of displacement in and through cinema and the other forms of arts including animation, poetry, gaming, CGI, and music, to generate a deeper understanding of the exilic experience. An exploration of the emotional state of waiting in uncertainty, alienation, loneliness, confusion, fear, fragmentation, time, family, and search for home. These questions come from a motivation to better understand, to reflect, and to reflect on this tension, and to understand the plethora of emotions attached to it. The self-critical research rejects the dominant narrative that simplifies and reinforces pre assumptions. It rather embraces the exilic contrapuntal way of thinking, prioritizing criticality and emphasizing on the specificity, and complexity of the subject matter. Having the diary, and the practice of diary making as one of its central elements, the research is extremely vulnerable, honest, and personal.

Letters from a land unfamiliar is one of the explorations of this research. A feature length film about the subject’s relationship with filmmaking, family, home, and exile. The film is seen from within the head of the filmmaker who explores his diary archive of writings, and footage to better understand and reflect on his experience while editing the film. The waves of footage, and writings, are entangled with the wind of memory, and crash with the ongoing alienated, ungrounded present, where what’s left from the grips of reality are being continuously lost. Escape to the imagined alternative world is a necessity infiltrated by the absurdity of the real world.

Visual Abstract Artistic Research: