Summary Of Measure Of Distance By Hatoum

IV. Diaspora and Postnational citizenship
“What I like about her is her ability to combine different cultures: She was born in one particular place, settled in another, was adopted by it, and has managed to mix everything together in a universal way,” said by Christine Van Assche, the exhibition curator, who was the curator for Hatoum’s first Pompidou show twenty-one years ago. This is undeniable that the subject-matter she deals in her works, she deals it with a universal way. Though a citable number of her works make reference to her own experience, but these also go further away finally it makes meaning for all who are in expatriation, in diaspora or who wants to construct their memory with the reference from their home. Hatoum’s work Measure of Distance can be a noticeable example where she perceives the displacement, and memory, the notion of private identity from the viewpoint of postnational citizenship.

Engagingly here she uses her mother’s image within a social-political context. As she says “once I made the work I found that it spoke of the complexities of exile, displacement, the sense of loss and separation caused by war”. In this fifteen minutes long video, to depict the loss of war, memory, expulsion, and exile Hatoum used her mother’s image, who is a Palestinian in exile living in Beirut. The images she took in 1981 during her visit to Beirut, while her mother was taking