Colour Correction 2
Central themes in Khalili’s work are the trauma of losing the homeland in 1948, the sense of separation between the shared memories of the older, exiled generation and the present reality of Palestine. In the Colour Correction - Camp series, Khalili’s focus is Al-Am’ari refugee camp, a sprawling entity located inside/beside/outside the city of Ramallah. The form of the camp does not so much represent its economic status but rather represents its loss and trauma as a political manifestation, by the continuous production of the ephemeral structures and their relation with their surroundings. Khalili changes the refugee camp’s colours as a symbolic act, an attempt to fill this sense of loss, like a child filling a colouring book- and produce the possibility of hope. Here he attempts to appropriate an urban landscape that reminds us of the tragedy - of their existence and our disappearance - in order to subvert memory into a desired future.