Larissa Sansour (Arabic: لاريسا سنسور; born 1973) is a
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
artist who currently resides in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. She is into photography, film, sculpture, and installation art. Some of her works include Tank (2003), Bethlehem Bandolero (2005), Happy Days (2006), Cairo Taxilogue (2008), The Novel of Novel and Novel (2009), Falafel Road (2010), Palestinauts (2010), Nation State (2012), In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain (2016), and Archaeology in Absentia (2016).
Career
She was born in
East Jerusalem and studied at the
Byam Shaw School of Art
The Byam Shaw School of Art, often known simply as Byam Shaw, was an independent art school in London, England, which specialised in fine art and offered foundation and degree level courses. It was founded in 1910 by John Liston Byam Shaw and ...
. Sansour received a
BFA from the
Maryland Institute College of Art
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...
and an
MA in fine art from
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
. She studied art history and criticism at the
University of Baltimore
The University of Baltimore (UBalt, UB) is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is part of the University System of Maryland. UBalt's schools and colleges provide education in business, law, public affairs, and the applied arts and sc ...
and was a visiting student at the
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - Billedkunst Skolerne) has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the art of Denmark.
History
The Royal Dan ...
.
[
In her art, Sansour uses video, photography, book form and web pages, as well as ]installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
. She includes references to various elements from popular culture such as Spaghetti Westerns, horror films and superheroes. She also makes use of science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
as a vehicle for providing an alternative perspective on current social issues.
Sansour has had solo exhibitions in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, Stockholm, Istanbul
)
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and Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. She has been included in group exhibitions including the Istanbul Biennial
The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Format
Istanbul Bien ...
, the Busan Biennale in South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
and the Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom.
Every two years, the city of Liverpool hosts an extensive range of artworks, projects, and a programme of events. The biennial commissions leading ...
, as well as exhibitions at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
, the Brooklyn Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...
, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
The is an art museum founded in 1989. It is in Hijiyama Park in Hiroshima, Japan. The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa.
Representative collections
Access
*Hiroden
is a Japanese transportation company established on ...
. Her work is included in the collections of the Imperial War Museum in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, the Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Wolverhampton Art Gallery is located in the City of Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. The building was funded and constructed by local contractor Philip Horsman (1825–1890), and built on land provided by the municipal aut ...
, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark
)
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, song_type = National and royal anthem
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, establish ...
, the Carlsberg Foundation
Carlsberg Foundation ( da, Carlsbergfondet) was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876, by allocating some of his shares in the Carlsberg Brewery to fund and operate the Carlsberg Laboratory and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palac ...
, the Barjeel Art Foundation
Barjeel Art Foundation is a non-profit arts organisation based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The foundation was established in 2010 by Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to manage and exhibit his personal art collection. There are ov ...
, the Louis Vuitton Collection and the Nadour Collection.[
Her show at the Mosaic Rooms was cited in ]Art Review
''ArtReview'' is an international contemporary art magazine based in London, founded in 1948. Its sister publication, ''ArtReview Asia'', was established in 2013.
History
Launched as a fortnightly broadsheet in February 1949 by a retired country ...
as one of the world's "must-see" exhibitions in the summer of 2016.
In 2011, the annual Elysée art prize competition was cancelled after Sansour's work ''Nation Estate
''Nation Estate'' is a 2013 Palestinian movie directed by Larissa Sansour. It is a sci-fi short film that depicts Palestine as a skyscraper, with each floor representing a city in Palestine. An earlier version of the project garnered attention w ...
'' was excluded by sponsor Lacoste
Lacoste S.A. is a French company, founded in 1933 by tennis player René Lacoste, and entrepreneur Mangkha. It sells clothing, footwear, sportswear, eyewear, leather goods, perfume, towels and watches. The company can be recognised by its g ...
on the grounds that the work was not compatible with the competitions theme of "joie de vivre". Interpreting Lacoste's decision as political, the Musée de l'Élysée
Musée de l'Élysée is a museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, entirely devoted to photography. It is a government-supported institution founded in 1985 by Charles-Henri Favrod. It was housed in an 18th-century mansion until October 2020. chose to cancel the prize.
Larissa Sansour represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale 2019 with her exhibition ''Heirloom''; an enactment of a dystopic future in a state of an undergone ecological collapse. In 2020 her work was presented at Bildmuseet
Bildmuseet ( en, Museum of Visual Arts) is a contemporary art museum in Umeå, northern Sweden.
History
The museum was founded in 1981 by Umeå University and it exhibits Swedish and international contemporary art, visual culture, design, and a ...
, Umeå University, Sweden, showing the ''Heirloom'' exhibition. The exhibition included Sansour's science fiction film ''In Vitro'', which, as the artist explained in ''Ocula Magazine'', 'questions the cyclicality of history and the fact that no matter where we are heading, revision is always needed'.
Venice Biennale 2019
In 2018 Larissa Sansour was appointed by The Danish Arts Foundation The Danish Arts Foundation (Danish: Statens Kunstfond) is the principal Danish government funded arts foundation founded by a special Law on 27 May 1964.
Statens Kunstfond alongside the :da:Statens Kunstråd (English sometimes State Arts Council n ...
to represent Denmark at Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
2019 – La Biennale di Venezia
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
– the 58th International Art Exhibition. Dutch curator Nat Muller has been selected to curate the exhibition, called ''Heirloom'', in the Danish pavilion.
Personal life
Larissa lives and works in London having previously been resident in Denmark. Her sister is filmmaker Leila Sansour
Leila Sansour ( ar, ليلى صنصور) is the founder and chief executive officer of Open Bethlehem, a non-governmental foundation established to promote and protect the life and heritage of the city of Bethlehem. Sansour developed the Bethlehe ...
.
Filmography[ ]
* ''Bethlehem Bandolero'', short (2005)
* ''Happy Days, 2'', short (2006)
* ''Soup Over Bethlehem'', documentary (2007)
* ''Run Lara Run, 2'', short (2008)
* ''SBARA'', short (2008)
* ''A Space Exodus'', science fiction (2009), nominated for a Muhr award at the Dubai International Film Festival
The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF, ar, مهرجان دبي السينمائي الدولي) is the leading film festival in the Arab region. The 12th edition of DIFF took place from December 9 – 16, 2015. In 2018, the DIFF announc ...
* ''Falafel Road'', documentary (2011), with Oreet Ashery
* ''Trespass the Salt'', documentary (2011)
* ''Feast of the Inhabitants'', short (2012)
* ''Nation Estate
''Nation Estate'' is a 2013 Palestinian movie directed by Larissa Sansour. It is a sci-fi short film that depicts Palestine as a skyscraper, with each floor representing a city in Palestine. An earlier version of the project garnered attention w ...
'', science fiction (2012)
* ''In The Future, They Ate from the Finest Porcelain'', science fiction (2015), nominated for a Muhr award at the Dubai International Film Festival
* ''In Vitro'', short (2019)
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sansour, Larissa
1973 births
Living people
Palestinian women artists
Palestinian women film directors
Palestinian film directors