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.

Spotlights shine on images of various sizes, posted to a grouping of free standing gray panels and on purple fabric banners suspended from the ceiling. A single video channel projects yellow flowers on the back corner wall.
Three channels of video are projected onto uneven surfaces of large overlapping rectangular panels. The outside projections show inverted blue images. The middle projection shows a person in red, monochromatic lighting, dancing with a long swinging ponytail and their arms in the air. In the foreground sit short, metal benches.
A single channel video of an inverted blue and purple thistles is projected along a back corner wall. Multiple concrete bricks with a skeletal thistle plant stuck into it sit across the floor. On each side of the projection are images posted to standing gray panels.
Three channels of video are projected onto uneven surfaces of large overlapping rectangular panels. The outside projections are of landscapes, the middle projection is a profile of a person with text reading “An echo Buried Buried Buried”. In the foreground sit short, metal benches.
A projection of two people dancing and clapping in front of a large rocky background is projected across a wall and on various sized rectangular panels, staggered in a row, making the projection surface uneven.

Installation view: Perlman Teaching Museum at Carleton College, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us, 2025. Photo: Eric Mueller