Humaniora (2003)

Handling

'Humaniora is about that least popular kind of enforced rest: treatment and convalescence. It's a vision of hospitals, not as sites of trauma, but as a kind of pregnant pause in the headlong rush. Sunlight reflects off a tower, a pigeon roosts on a rooftop, and that precise moment of transition from night to day is captured when an illuminated sign suddenly switches off. Airy, Victorian glasshouses contrast with shadowy concrete alleyways as Nashashibi portrays different attitudes to sickness in different eras.' Rosalind Nashashibi's films span many boundaries, from Nazareth in Israel to the America Mid West. She has said of her work: 'The films observe what I suppose people would call 'real life', but I think they're about vacation away from life, about inactivity or rest, whether it be chosen or forced. I go into public areas with my camera and really observe how people are moving in their spaces, how they are using their neighbourhood.' - Moira Jeffrey in the Herald: