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Photo by Larissa Sansour/Søren Lind, In Vitro, 2019 (still). Courtesy of the artists.

Larissa Sansour, with Søren Lind

In Vitro

August 19 – October 20, 2021

Larissa Sansour (b. 1973, East Jerusalem, Palestine) lives and works in London, England. Sansour uses science fiction and projections of possible futures to reflect on the contemporary state of Palestine, and the role of nation states in general. Her works in film and installation examine how the archives of the present will tell our stories to future generations. Through this work, Sansour highlights the ways that myths and fairy tales construct our identities and sense of belonging.

For the High Line, Sansour presents her 2019 film In Vitro, originally commissioned for the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The work, directed with and written by Søren Lind, is set in a bunker underneath a future version of Bethlehem after a massive climate disaster. The film follows a conversation between two scientists. One, ailing, has worked to build a new orchard from heirloom seeds gathered on the eve of the apocalypse; the second questions the other’s manipulation of nostalgia and memory to build a new civilization in the image of the old one. The elegant black-and-white film questions our distinctions between natural and human-made disasters and what parts of civilization are worth saving in the first place.

Organized by Melanie Kress, High Line Art Associate Curator.


Support

Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Corey Johnson. High Line Channel is supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.