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Fixing TimeSalah Elmur
From his studio in Cairo, artist Salah Elmur sifts through memories held in the “boxes of his mind” to paint dream-like images of life in Khartoum, Sudan, the home he longs to return to. Referencing photographs found in his father’s archive or purchased from collectors in Cairo, Elmur’s surreal compositions combine the documentary and the subjective, capturing the essence of Khartoum. “Ninety percent of my art comes out of Sudan,” says the artist. “I remember the dams, the swimmers, the electricity towers, lovers sitting by the river, horses passing. I feel nostalgia for my past.” Today, Elmur is unable to return to Khartoum due to political conflict, censorship, and war. This documentary short follows the artist’s journey to the past through his paintings, drawing from his vast photographic archive to paint idyllic images of his childhood spent alongside the Blue Nile contrasted with images of imprisonment and violence that emerge from Sudan today.
More information and creditsCredits
Director: Matteo Lonardi. Executive Producer: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Ian Forster. Editor: Matteo Lonardi, Thomas Niles. Cinematography: Amr Nazeer. Cairo Production: Amr Ashraf, Rua Osman, White Owls. Production Support: Ahmed Abdel Mawgood, Samy Alhawary, Magdy Elgarhy, Sherif Magdy. Assistant Director: Mohamed Youssef. Gaffer: Hossam Kafer. Lighting Assistant: Abdo Bayb, Bahaa Bayoumy, Said Adel, Fares Mohamed, Abdallah Ali, Mohamed Mostafa. Best Boy: Abdelrahman Saeed. Production Assistant: Eslam Abdrabo, Mahmoud Zabady. Driver: Amr Adly, Ali Eltahtawy Samir, Ahmed Hamouda. Sound: Ahmed Hussien. Assistant Editor: Michelle Hanks. Colorist: Max Blecker. Sound Mix: Collin Blendell. Associate Producer: Andrea Chung. Assistant Curator: Jurrell Lewis. Translation: Noor Tamari. Music: Epidemic Sound, Piero Umiliani / Liuto Edizioni Musicali.
Artwork Courtesy: Salah Elmur. Archival Materials: ABC News, BBC News, The Guardian, Ahmed Jabir / Sudanow, Tariq Nasre / Sudanow, Trt World.
Special Thanks: Mutaz Atti, Shehab Hossam, Ayman Hussein
Art21 Staff: Makda Amdetsyon, Lauren Barnett, Hannah DeGarmo, Lolita Fierro, Grace LeCates, Emma Nordin, Nick Ravich, Jessica Svenson, Noor Tamari, Nora Wimmer.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide.
Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.
Salah Elmur was born in 1966 in Khartoum, Sudan, and lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. He received his BA in Graphic Design from the College of Fine and Applied Art at Sudan University, in 1989. Elmur draws inspiration from his vast archive of Sudanese portrait photography to create dreamlike paintings that reflect his memories of Sudan, his cultural heritage, and his own political commentary. Weaving together the documentary and the fantastical, he draws on his personal experiences to explore universal themes such as nostalgia, community, conflict, and censorship.
“My mind is full of small boxes. Each box, it has an image. This image, I capture it from my childhood, from any time of my life…I just take the soul of these things, I take that emotion.”
Salah Elmur