Bashir Makhoul is an English artist originally from Palestine. His video and sound installation, The Darkened Room, is based on the relationship he developed with his grandmother shortly before her death. Because Makhoul had grown up in England while she remained in Lebanon, he only came to know her as an adult. After their first meeting she sent him recorded letters. The soundtrack is taken from these intimate conversations. The small room in which the piece is housed has a false floor, underneath which the artist has installed a sound system. This gives the sound a physical quality, in that it can be felt through the feet as well as heard. Enveloped in the conversation, the visitor's bodily responses are magnified.


These aural and tactile effects are complemented by two video images of a single eye, gazing at each other across the room. They document the artist's physical response to his grandmother's recorded voice. Although he tries not to cry, we watch as his eyelids flutter and pools of moisture form around the rim of the eye, then disperse. Photographs of Makhoul's grandmother - in her youth and as an old woman - are installed opposite the doorway. These two images, of distant moments in one life, make us aware of all the other moments that have passed unrecorded. A black ribbon signifies her death and Makhoul's bereavement.

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Bashir Makhoul is an English artist originally from Palestine. His video and sound installation, The Darkened Room, is based on the relationship he developed with his grandmother shortly before her death. Because Makhoul had grown up in England while she remained in Lebanon, he only came to know her as an adult. After their first meeting she sent him recorded letters. The soundtrack is taken from these intimate conversations. The small room in which the piece is housed has a false floor, underneath which the artist has installed a sound system. This gives the sound a physical quality, in that it can be felt through the feet as well as heard. Enveloped in the conversation, the visitor's bodily responses are magnified.


These aural and tactile effects are complemented by two video images of a single eye, gazing at each other across the room. They document the artist's physical response to his grandmother's recorded voice. Although he tries not to cry, we watch as his eyelids flutter and pools of moisture form around the rim of the eye, then disperse. Photographs of Makhoul's grandmother - in her youth and as an old woman - are installed opposite the doorway. These two images, of distant moments in one life, make us aware of all the other moments that have passed unrecorded. A black ribbon signifies her death and Makhoul's bereavement.