The Old House
Silent, 2006 - 2011
I am not telling in order to remember. On the contrary, I am doing so to make sure that I’ve forgotten. Or at least, to make sure that I’ve forgotten some things, that they were erased from my memory. When I am certain that I’ve forgotten, I attempt to remember what it is that I’ve forgotten. And while attempting to remember, I start guessing and saying: perhaps, maybe, it’s possible, it might be , probably, it can be, it looks like, it seems that, I am not sure but, etc… This way I reinvent what I had forgotten on the basis that I have in fact remembered it. After an indefinite while, I retell it. Not to remember it, no, but to make sure that I’ve forgotten it, or at least parts of it, and so on and so forth.
This operation might appear repetitive, but it is the contrary, because it is a refusal to go back to the beginnings, and what know you of beginnings? This way I keep oscillating between remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting, till death comes. I am betting on death to make me rediscover everything anew. Even if it happens that there will be nothing new; that will be in itself a discovery.
Rabih Mroué
