The graphic translation of the text at the heart of the Fatamorgana project (2016–2019), alongside a variety of related materials, including project notes and contributions. The books also provides online access to photographic, video, and sound materials, along with technical specifications for all of the project's component elements.
Fatamorgana is both a political parody and a speculative comedy, in which historical and contemporary personalities narrate post–World War II global history and geopolitics, through a web of references and direct citations. The undercurrent is one of sense, illusion, and truth. Hanan—a Muslim cousin of James Joyce's Molly Bloom—finds herself, not sure how, in Beirut's Hall of Fame waxwork museum after its closing hours. Like Homer's most virtuous Penelope, this woman waits for her husband; she appears to have set a date with him, but he has not arrived—where can he be? While waiting, she begins interacting with the wax figures in the museum's empty rooms, and the figures respond in turn. Blending and clashing sixteen differing languages, as well as a variety of fiction and nonfiction sources, Fatamorgana is a multidimensional space, a kind of experiment with truth, or a type of fiction that sets up a platform for the collision of multiple fragments, elements, stories, facts.
The publication is the final chapter in a longtime endeavor. Fatamorgana is a multiform project realized between 2016 and 2019, comprising a theatrical work, two films, two publications, and a sound installation. The current book is dedicated to the graphic translation of the text at the heart of the project, alongside a variety of related materials, including project notes and contributions from various authors, while providing online access to photographic, video, and sound materials, along with technical specifications for all of the project's component elements.
Salomé Lamas (born 1987 in Lisbon, where she lives and works) studied cinema in Lisbon (Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema) and Prague (Filmová a Televizni Fakulta Akademie Múzick'VCHV Praze), visual arts MFA in Amsterdam (Sandberg Instituut, Gerrit Rietveld Academie) and is a Ph.D candidate in Contemporary Art Studies in Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra).
Her work has been screened both in art venues and film festivals such as Berlinale – Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, NIMK – Netherlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Roma, BAFICI, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, FIAC, MNAC – Museu do Chiado, DocLisboa, Cinema du Réel, Visions du Réel, MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Pacific Film Archive, Harvard Film Archive, Museum of Moving Images NY, Jewish Museum NY, Fid Marseille, Arsenal Institut fur film und videokunst, Viennale, Hong Kong Film Festival, UCLA Film & Television Archive,
Serralves – Museu de Arte Comtemporânea, Tate Modern, Centre d'Art Contemporain de Genève, Bozar – Palais des Beaux-Arts, Tabakalera, ICA – The Institute of Contemporary Arts, Mostra de São Paulo, CAC – Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Lamas was granted several fellowships such as The Gardner Film Study Center Fellowship—Harvard University, The Rockefeller Foundation – Bellagio Center, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Oriente, Bogliasco Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD.
