A Distance from here
Video, 12 min, 2010
In the video “The Distance from Here” (2010), Abidi veers away from the explicit, if poetic, documentary work .The film was made on a set with hired extras playing the role of expectant visa applicants. They file onto a bus to an embassy. They are ushered into lines. They wait to be frisked, one by one, as they watch those before them disappear behind a fabric curtain. The embassy, in this regard, functions as a third country. Crossing its glass-door threshold is a solitary rite of passage. They carry stoic, if not vacant, expressions on their faces. Abidi carefully renders the tedious passage of time that is central to the experience of waiting - an interminable, conflicted simmers of emotions. They wait keenly for their turn, yet they dread rejection.
Artist's Bio:
Bani Abidi was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1971. She studied painting and printmaking, earning a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, in 1994. She later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earning an MFA in 1999. She completed residencies with the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (2000), Fukuoka Art Exchange Program, Japan (2005), and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (2011–2012).