Measures of Distance

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, Mona Hatoum developed Measures of Distance (1988), a fifteen-minute autobiographical video that recounts the renewed intimacy between a mother in Beirut and daughter in London mediated through epistolary correspondence. 

The video overlays photographs of Hatoum’s mother with scanned letters she wrote to her daughter in Arabic. Hatoum reads these letters aloud in English, while candid conversations in Arabic play faintly in the background. The correspondence traverses wide emotional ground: the intimacy and tensions of the mother-daughter bond, resentment within marriage, female sexuality, the daily fears of living in conflict, and the persistent ache and fragmentation of exile. Through this layering of image, script, and sound, the work reflects a deeply personal experience of displacement, disorientation, and loss.

Video documentation is available upon request.