Repeat After Me – Karam Natour

Repeat After Me

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Repeat After Me (2018) is a 21-minute video work composed of a sequence of short scenes performed by the artist and members of his extended family, including cousins, uncles, aunts, and his grandmother. Through a series of half-staged actions, conversations, games, and reenactments, the work examines the role of language, family, and culture in shaping individual and collective identity. The video opens with the artist’s family gathered in a living room, addressing the viewer in Arabic, Hebrew, and English while announcing that the work will contain no subtitles. Language is positioned not only as a means of communication but also as a site of inclusion and exclusion. Among these scenes, the artist and three of his cousins fill their mouths with colored water and spray it at one another as if they were human fountains, referencing Bruce Nauman’s Self-Portrait as a Fountain. In another sequence, members of the artist’s family reenact a scene from Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies, simulating a solar eclipse within a reimagined domestic setting. The video culminates in a ritualized dance performed by the artist’s uncle, transforming a private family gesture into a performative act for the camera. Following earlier works such as Heat in My Head and Yoman, which focused primarily on the artist’s mother and twin brother, Repeat After Me expands the familial dynamic to a wider network of relatives. By placing members of his extended family at the center of these staged encounters, the work reflects on the ways values, traditions, behaviors, and identities are inherited, performed, negotiated, and transformed across generations.