Adonis River, 2023
COMMISSIONED by the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, with the support of the Graham Foundation and maria sukkar.
Adonis River, known in modern day Lebanon as Nahr Ibrahim or Abraham River, is located in the region of Mount Lebanon. Each spring, the melting snow from the clay-rich soil of the mountain slopes flows down a cave and floods the river, bringing a reddish mud into the stream of the river. This red stain feeding into the river can be seen flowing out onto the Mediterranean.
The myth holds that it was in the spring when Adonis, the mortal lover of the Goddess Aphrodite, was killed by a wild boar inside this cave and each year, at the time of his death, his blood feeds into the river. To this day, this myth lives through the pilgrimages of mourning and grief. Nasser made the paintings inside the cave where Adonis was killed, on fabrics that she rubbed on-site, then dyed with iron oxide-rich local clay and washed in the river.
Working alongside the seasonal shifts of the location, which are present in the river's mud content, Nasser leans into the legend of Adonis’ blood flowing through the river Abrahim, marking the period of mourning. Nasser employs her body and the site as means to evoke rituals of transition considering the messages of nature's decay every winter and rebirth every spring.
The installation is accompanied by an hour-long four-channel sound piece consisting of mourning prayers recorded and slowed down forty times—understood by many cultures and faiths to be the number of days it takes for a soul to transfer to the afterlife. This composition was then played back inside the cave and temple and re-recorded, folding in each site’s natural resonances along with sounds from the surrounding environment where the myth lives.
Spatial design MÜLLERAPRAHAMIAN
Sound design and composer Mhamad Safa
Dala Nasser, Adonis River, installation view at the Renaissance Society, 2023.
© Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Photo by Bob.