The Landing

Drifting desert sand, abandoned household items, and experimental sounds are the raw materials for a unique project that melds landscape art and musical performance. Filmmaker and photographer Akram Zaatari was inspired by a strange and unsettling site he found in Sharjah, one of the Arab Emirates. The abandoned houses built here in the 1980s for a Bedouin community are now being engulfed by the desert.

Three men appear, like archaeologists from the future, in this playful composition at the intersection of sound and vision, of nature and human intervention. They knock on walls and metal pipes, rustle the sand, discover singing bowls, pluck cables like strings, and project their voices through a gigantic megaphone.

A scene featuring a swing pays tribute to the artist Hassan Sharif, who died in 2016. In images that seem to be exploring their own possibilities, The Landing invites viewers to free their imagination, heading towards a mighty final chord.