The Heart of Darkness - Landscape Photography and Decolonial Photographic Practices

Gil Mualem-Doron

The exhibition presents collaborations with Palestinian communities and individuals uprooted from their village and land in 1948 and who have been internal refugees since then. These projects were formed through conceptual and collaborative photography sessions, archival material and landscape photography. Using mixed media, photographic prints and video, they depict the remnants of the village and the landscape created to erase and council its existence.

Like photography, the landscape has little to do with anything “natural”. Colonial and racialised perspectives contaminate both concepts and practices. Linked to this understanding and to the practice of visualization of one’s internal landscape (used by PTSD cases) - the exhibition includes a photography series of the first place Mualem-Doron remembered as a child - the bomb shelter in his parent's building and a series of conceptual self-portraits.

Common ground is often forged between agonistic or rival groups or competing interests. Similarly to “common land” in England, it was formed through constant struggles. As the National Trust mentions, “While much common land across the country was eventually enclosed, those that remain are often well-documented sites of sustained resistance.”

The economy of land ownership, especially in Britain, cannot be separated from colonial and racial issues. It is one of the building blocks in recognising the intersections of racism and capitalism that fuelled the Industrial Revolution.

These complex works were exhibited previously in the UK, Israel-Palestine, South Africa and Brazil.

Artist biography

Gil Mualem-Doron is an artist, photographer, curator and educator. Since his doctoral thesis he has been developing socially engaged practices in various sites, including museums, schools, universities, and even on the streets.
He founded the Socially Engaged Art Salon [SEAS CIC], which has been part of his pursuit of collaborative practices. His work has been exhibited and presented in places such as Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary, Autograph Gallery, the South Bank Centre, The People History Museum, Rich-Mix, ONCA Gallery, P21 Gallery and Worthing Museum in the UK and in Israel-Palestine, South Africa, Brazil, Norway & Germany

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47 Warwick Street
Worthing
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7–21 October

Tuesday 10:00–17:00
Wednesday 10:00–17:00
Thursday 10:00–17:00
Friday 10:00–17:00
Saturday 10:00–17:00
Sunday 10:00–17:00

The Heart of Darkness - Landscape Photography and Decolonial Photographic Practices
Gil Mualem-Doron