Palestinian artist Sharif Waked mixes contemporary politics and history in his work, diverting esthetic codes and propaganda to reveal, with humor, their absurdities.  

To Be Continued… sets up a familiar device: that of recordings made by kamikazes before their attack.  Facing the camera, a man — played by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri — is sitting, a rifle by his side, a book in his hands. But instead of an ideological message, he reads an excerpt from the Thousand and One Nights, where Scheherazade tells the king a story every night to delay her execution. 

This unexpected parallel questions the link between narrative and survival, offering a subtle critique of the media representation of martyrdom and resistance. In this artistic work, the act of storytelling becomes a gesture of life and defiance, beyond any political instrument. 

 Presented at the Sharjah Biennial 9 (2009)