Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme's 'Prisoners of Love' at The Bell
Palestinian artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme present 'Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom' (2025), a four-channel film installation at The Bell/Brown Arts Institute in Providence, through 31 May. The hour-long work uses chromatically saturated projections on staggered steel, concrete, and fabric panels, accompanied by electronic music. It overlays spoken and written testimonies from Palestinians formerly detained by Israeli authorities, recounting prison conditions, guard behavior, and survival strategies. The installation also includes drawings by Abou-Rahme's father and unattributed ruminations on the Gaza genocide. The artists frame suppressed information while embracing poetic disjunction, making the evidence less legible but truer to life.
Key facts
- Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme are New York- and Ramallah-based Palestinian artists.
- The film 'Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom' is four-channel and hour-long.
- The installation is at The Bell/Brown Arts Institute, Providence.
- The exhibition runs through 31 May.
- The work includes testimonies of Palestinians formerly detained by Israeli authorities.
- Drawings by Abou-Rahme's father are displayed in the lobby.
- The artists use fragmented narratives and poetic disjunction.
- The film references Michel Foucault's concept of penitentiary techniques permeating society.
Entities
Artists
- Basel Abbas
- Ruanne Abou-Rahme
- Samih Al-Qasim
- George Jackson
- Hito Steyerl
- Walid Raad
- Simon Cartwright
Institutions
- The Bell
- Brown Arts Institute
- ArtReview
- The Bell Gallery
- Brown University
- Forensic Architecture
- Aesthetica Magazine
- Bell Gallery at Brown University
- Nottingham Contemporary
- Kunstinstituut Melly
- Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona / MACBA
- Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
- Center for Middle Eastern Studies
- Middle East Institute at Columbia University
- John Hay Library
Locations
- New York
- Ramallah
- Providence
- Gaza
- United States
- Palestine
- Nottingham
- United Kingdom
- Rotterdam
- Netherlands
- Barcelona
- Spain
- Philadelphia
- San Quentin