Circular embroidery depicting the sea, created by a member of the Le Temps Brodé collective, presented in the installation "Asylum of Dreams" by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige at the Sydney Biennale. (Credit: Silversalt Photography)
Imagination has always been central to the work of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. But for them, imagining is not just creating an “elsewhere.” It is a method.It means stepping outside the usual flow of time to look at its gaps, silences, and hidden stories, and to explore other possible ways of telling them. For over two decades, the Lebanese duo have been questioning how stories are constructed, transmitted, or disappear. The imagination thus acts as a critical instrument, capable of suspending the chronology of reality to better observe the stories that compose it. With "Asylum of Dreams," an installation presented at the Sydney Biennale, this questioning reaches a particular intensity: for the first time, perhaps, the two great ideas that weave through their work — imagination and time — appear so closely...
Imagination has always been central to the work of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. But for them, imagining is not just creating an “elsewhere.” It is a method.It means stepping outside the usual flow of time to look at its gaps, silences, and hidden stories, and to explore other possible ways of telling them. For over two decades, the Lebanese duo have been questioning how stories are constructed, transmitted, or disappear. The imagination thus acts as a critical instrument, capable of suspending the chronology of reality to better observe the stories that compose it. With "Asylum of Dreams," an installation presented at the Sydney Biennale, this questioning reaches a particular intensity: for the first time, perhaps, the two great ideas that weave through their work — imagination and time — appear so closely...
