Dust and Light, 2009 (excerpt)
Running time: continuous loop / HD / colour

Dust, illuminated by light floats in space in an abandoned synagogue in Amzrou, a Kasbah in southern Morocco.

Camera: Sylvia Safdie
Editing: Patrick Andrew Boivin, Sylvia Safdie
Audio: Silent

Pise, the traditional material used in the buildings of the area is as free [available?/plentiful?] as the earth.  It is the ground one walks on. The earth is shoveled up and cast through a strainer and then mixed with straw and water. It is known as “the material blessed by God.”  In a synagogue, small windows, and the quiet and soft intimacy of the sound inside a pise structure, brings a spiritual element. At the same time pise is in a continual state of erosion, shedding fine dust.  Today, after years of abandonment, the synagogue is filled with layers of dust accumulated over generations.