Raeda Saadeh explores how femininity intertwines with sociopolitical currents and cultural norms, drawing from her experience as a Palestinian woman, caught both in the Israeli occupation and in Arab religious and social conventions.

In Vacuum, she appears, vacuum cleaner in hand, cleaning the arid hills of Palestine, slowly advancing toward the fixed camera, while the mechanical hum blends with the wind's breath. 

By placing this mundane domestic task in an absurd setting, Saadeh points to our dogged pursuit of empty gestures that distract from systemic dysfunction. Just as it is futile to "clean" a mountain of the dust and stones that make it up, it is impossible to erase the memory of a people from their land. Filmed between Jericho and the Dead Sea, this Sisyphean video becomes a metaphor for the daily effort to survive and the seemingly endless struggle for liberation. 

 Presented at the Sharjah Biennial 8 (2007)