In Vitro
Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind
Collections Gallery
In Arabic with English subtitles
“When our time comes, that time will no longer be ours. We will be an archive for someone else to make sense of,” Dunia says to Alia.
In a concrete bunker deep beneath the city of Bethlehem, decades after an ecological disaster, young scientist Alia visits Dunia as she lies on her deathbed.
Filmed in black and white, In Vitro is a 2-channel Arabic sci-fi film in which its protagonists negotiate questions of cultural heritage and memory, engaging dichotomies and dualities of myth/fiction, natural worlds/human architectures, and inherited trauma/collective memory. As Alia and Dunia navigate generational disagreements, above ground, an abandoned nuclear reactor is prepared to be planted by heirloom seeds. Despite what we seek in the face of colonial catastrophe, the land itself endures.
In Vitro was commissioned by the Danish Arts Foundation for the Danish Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2019 and produced by Spike Island.
- Director: Larissa Sansour
- Director, Author: Søren Lind
- Production, Camera: Ali Roche
- Editing: Sue Giovanni
- Co-Production: May Odeh
- Visual Effects Supervisor: Henrik Bach Christensen
- Original Music and Composition: Niklas Schak
- Supervising Sound Editor: Tom Sedgwick
- Sound Design: Ben Hurd
- Costumes: Anne Sofie Masden and Isabelle Cook
- Art Director: Simon Godfrey
- Script Supervisor: Maxim Sansour
Performers:
- Dunia: Iam Abbass
- Alia: Maisa Abd Elhadi
- Young Girl: Marah Abu Srour
- Nun: Leila Sansour
Larissa Sansour
Larissa Sansour was born in 1973 in East Jerusalem, Palestine. Central to her work is the dialectics between myth and historical narrative. In her recent works, she uses science fiction to address social and political issues. Working mainly with film, Sansour also produces installations, photos and sculptures.
Sansour’s work is shown in film festivals and museums worldwide. In 2019, she represented Denmark at the 58th Venice Biennial. In 2020, she was the shared recipient of the prestigious Jarman Award. She has shown her work at Tate Modern, MoMA, Centre Pompidou and the Istanbul Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, KINDL in Berlin, Copenhagen Contemporary in Denmark, Bluecoat in Liverpool, Bildmuseet in Umeå and Dar El-Nimer in Beirut.
Sansour currently lives and works in London, UK.
