Spirit Through the Mirror

This work was created in response to poetic texts written by Habibah Sheikh, a nomadic performance artist originally from Lebanon, and the curator of the Mitli Mitlak exhibition. In the text, a character named Ruba experiences the destruction of war first hand and becomes a refugee in the process.

After Ruba is stabbed, a delegate from the out of life enters, accompanied by his assistants. The delegate performs the soul migration ceremony, so the double of Ruba leaves the lifeless for the ‘out of life’.


Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me), Act 1 Scene 4

Assistant 1 and 2: Charcoal! Ashes! Moribund flames! Weakness in the abysmal
That lays between your breath and your voice!
Delegate: The soul has won! The internal rain…has washed…has put out the origins of the pain. The soul wants to speak! Open your mouth! Separate the mandibular! (Pause) Listen to me! (Pause) . It is in darkness that you may find the light!
Assistant 1: Open your mouth!
Delegate: I will separate the words from your voice.
And that is you, somewhere in between. Go to the sun!
Assistant 1: Each territory of the earth is a region within you!
Assistant 2: The infinity of space is inside!
Assistant 2: The infinity of space is inside! Your mouth has been opened.
Delegate: You let yourself go from society. You put it in the fire, enabling me to bring the rain when you were burning. I put out the flames, I brought the rain. You will not be colonized, anymore!! You may light the light of the lights.

(The delegate, assistants, Carlos, Ruba and party members all remove their masks and are pleased to have improvised a new scene for their play).


Klaudja Sulaj uses photography and print as a ‘machine’ that randomly delivers meaning through stints, glitches, and random machine-layering of images. She turns toward the Mediterranean and is turning the Mediterranean into truth about the meaning of being. Inspired by the notion of ‘cradle of civilization’, she combines her attitude of functioning as a seer, an empathic, channeler of spirits, mirroring doubles, and conjured images from the ‘out of life.’ In her works, the ‘out of life’ apparitions seem to say, “ I was damaged, but I’m a shaman. The soul has won. I have put out the origins of the pain. Listen to me. My wounds have the power to heal because I healed myself."