The Dark-Skinned Nightingle

Informed by extended research and scholarship, the video of Nevet Yitzhak combine archival, photographic and found materials transformed through digital animation, editing and sound treatment. Her practice is seen as a critical examination of complex geo-political concerns and the fraught relationships between global powers and the Middle East. Living in Israel as a Jewish artist of Kurdish, Syrian and Yemenite heritage, Yitzhak creates work that responds to her context, expressing her minoritized position within Israeli society and her dissent from its current politics. ‘The Dark-Skinned Nightingale’ intercuts a double spread from an illuminated Iranian manuscript with fragments from Mohammed Karim’s film Delilah, Starring Shadia and Abd el-Halim Hafz which is the first color film produced by the Egyptian film industry. Yitzhak creates a moving parallel between two epic love stories of unrequited love centered on a manipulative and destructive female figure.