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8 - Beauty is a Hole in the Wall: Cecilia Parsberg

Ruth Illman
Ruth Illman
Affiliation:
Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History, Finland
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Summary

Ahmed, how will my memory begin the thought of you?

Patience of water, purified with blood.

Dryness of an eye, behind the gun sight, chasing your head …

How do I embrace you? A rose for the wounds when you are the garden in absence.

How do I walk toward your grave when you are buried in my heart without your heart?

The waves of the Mediterranean rush to the dark and quiet shores of the nightly Israeli coast as the poem of Ahmed is recited in Arabic by a local Palestinian poet. The sequence is part of the film A Heart from Jenin by the Swedish visual artist Cecilia Parsberg. “This is the story of Ahmed's heart,” Parsberg writes: a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy who lived in Jenin in the West Bank and who was shot by an Israeli sniper in November 2005. It is also the story of Ahmed's parents who donate six of his organs to the Israeli hospital where he dies, and of Samah, the thirteen-year-old Israeli girl who receives Ahmed's heart and with it the chance to continue her vivid and curious exploration of life. The heart, Parsberg writes, is a gift that drills a hole in the wall.

These opening lines present two strong symbols of dialogue and common humanity: the heart and the gift. This chapter explores the visual artistry of Cecilia Parsberg and the worldview and visions motivating her in her work.

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Art and Belief
Artists Engaged in Interreligious Dialogue
 , pp. 139 - 158
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2012

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