January 13–March 12, 2025

Artist duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme undertake long-term research projects that center themes of collectivity, resistance, and memory.

Their winter 2025 exhibition at the Perlman Teaching Museum, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, features three bodies of work from the pair’s decade-long project May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth (2010–ongoing). This research, spanning the past decade, explores diverse traditions of communal song and dance as a form of resistance across Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Working across a range of media — including moving-image installations, sound, performance, and poetry — their artwork centers themes of collectivity, resistance, and memory.

A dark room with purple walls is occupied by video projections and illuminated artworks on the floor and ceiling, creating an effect like overlapping windows on a computer screen. A purple glow comes from a tinted window on the left side. Freestanding panels are scattered throughout the room, each with colorful abstractions and other images mounted to them. Blue banners with abstracted plant designs hang from the ceiling and a red video projection, showing a person lying on their back, glows on the far wall.
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024.
Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024.
Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024.
Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024.
Photo: Dario Lasagni

Exhibition view: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2024. Photo: Dario Lasagni