Familiar @ Jumana Manna. 2007

- MANNA Jumana, Familiar, 2007.

Jumana Manna (1987, USA) was born in the US, but grew up in Jerusalem and studied at the Bezabel Academy of Arts and Design and the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo. Her work, such as Familiar, reflect on human identity in relation to gender and personality as well as collective identity, for example concerning the conflict ridden situation of the Palestinian population. Blessed Blessed Oblivion (2010), for example, comments on the lives of young men in occupied East Jerusalem as a lost generation parlysed by frustration.

In Familiar, the artist revisited a scene from her early childhood. She lay with her mother in a bed and was breastfed by her. The artist playing the role of the baby is actually old enough to have her own baby, while her mother seems to be past that age already. This generational shift creates a disturbing moment of agitation, as does the artist’s attempt to recreate the immediate intimacy of early childhood and the unconditional love between a mother and child.