A Close and Unbreachable distance: Witnessing Everything and Nothing

Harker, C.

Abstract

This paper began life as my attempt to bear witness to untitled part 1: everything and nothing, a videotape made by Vancouver based artist Jayce Salloum. However, in doing (or attempting to do) this, I found myself bearing witness to a great deal more. Because in approaching Salloum’s tape, I couldn’t help but encounter Soha Bechara, the ostensible ‘subject’ of the piece. And meeting Soha also meant coming across Lebanon, albeit an always-already partial version. Working my way through these entanglements, I dwell on intimacy as a form of relating, and the proliferation of subjectivities that everything and nothing enacts. And in recounting the intricate spatial formation that developed as a result of this process, I also want to argue that enactments of witnessing are both inherently geographical and affectively charged.

Citation

Harker, C. (2007). A Close and Unbreachable distance: Witnessing Everything and Nothing. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 6(1), 51-72

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Nov 6, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 13, 2009
• Journal: ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
• Print ISSN: 1492-9732
• Publisher: University of British Columbia, Okanagan
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 51-72
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1555369
• Publisher URL: http://www.acme-journal.org/Volume6-1.htm