Al Khidr - The Green Man

I first came across the mystical figure of Al Khidr in the short story Muneera written by Khaled Al Farraj (1929). I quickly found out about his cult following on Kuwait's Failaka island and in Bahrain, where shrines were built by his purported footprints. Women would sprinkle rose water at the site of his shrine with the hopes that the sweet water would bring sweet news of pregnancy.

Although Al Khidr appears in the Quran's Surat Al Kahf as the wise servant of Moses, there was a fatwa issued against his shrines and they were repeatedly rebuilt and demolished. Across faiths and cultures, saintly figures appear to assuage our anxiety about death and longevity. Al Khidr's precursor appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh as the eternal Utnapashtim. He is the Green Man in Celtic lore. He is Elijah of the Torah. St. George the dragon slayer, who is resurrected four times, is widely revered and even referred to euphemistically in Lebanon when we say that one who has gone mad has "gone to Al Khidr."

In this homage to him, with artist Gráinne Hebeler, we created an image of the Green Immortal linking together cross-cultural rumors about his appearance and powers. We placed these across the floating city of Venice in contextually relevant places with the intention of keeping the multiplicity of his legends alive.

These images, along with a number of artifacts and texts, were displayed in a glass coffin as part of a Museum of Immortality at Ashkal Alwan, curated by Anton Vidokle (e-flux). Summer 2014.