The Shake: Khaled Barakeh

About

The project takes its stepping-off point from Maurice Harron's iconic public sculpture, Hands across the Divide, symbolising the division between Catholic and Protestant in the doubly named City of Derry-Londonderry, marked by its complex identities in Northern Ireland.

Erected in 1992, Harron's sculpture symbolises conciliation between both sides of the political divide during The Troubles. Barakeh reimagines this historical marker, focusing on the hands of the monument's two figures and precisely the gap between them: cast in bronze, frozen in an unfinished reconciliation, almost meeting but never genuinely joining. Though it is a gap brimming with emotional, historical, and political differences, Khaled, as an artist in exile unable to return to Syria, is interested in exploring the possibilities within that emptiness and how it can serve as a bridge between communities, histories, and ideologies.

The project is realised over the duration of the exhibition and takes its stepping-off point from Maurice Harron's iconic public sculpture, Hands across the Divide, symbolising the division between Catholic and Protestant in the doubly named City of Derry-Londonderry, marked by its complex identities in Northern Ireland.

Additionally, a dynamically socially engaged segment of this project involves collaboration with a coalition of organisations, including the Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR), an NGO dedicated to leveraging international human rights standards as practical tools for economic, social, and environmental progress. Together, through utopian thinking, they will foster a series of events, talks, and workshops to bring new political imaginaries to life that challenge fixed realities.