6- ‘The Family Dinner Table’
5 puppets made from lace and cotton
One table and 5 wooden chairs
5 glazed Ceramic plates with a member’s family portrait on each
Ceramic cutlery
Chandelier made from 33 hanging drawings of bugs
33 glazed Ceramic gargoyles on a wooden screen
Year 2023
An installation comprising 5 chairs encircling a round table, acts as an interface between the personal and the collective, obfuscating the demarcation of narratives. The dinner table, emblematic of familial rootedness, is a leitmotif in Assi’s oeuvres. Atop this table rest five ornately decorated plates, each bearing the portrait of a family member represented by the faceless puppet made from white lace..
Suspended from the ceiling above the table, akin to an ominous mobile, a chattered chandelier composed of bugs’ drawings, hang over the family similar to an echo of buzzing hazards clouding the conversation. Behind them, an army of guarding gargoyles emerges from the wall of a shielding wooden screen. Assi repurposes these archaeological effigies, and, when dislocated from their original context, they resonate with contemporary relevance.
