“Noise of Time” speculates upon the afterlives of “empire” entangled in family histories, tangible and intangible landscapes, and unspoken memories. Considering retrospection as the place beyond time, the structure whereby disparate temporalities may be re-collected in one familiar place, Rola attempts to reimagine the relationship between the present moment and the traces of lost people, as well as lost places, offering possible worlds. This project is a continuum of a sisterly endeavour ‘Pieces of Us; The Intimate as Imperial Archive’ which, through a feminist re-ordering and rereading of our familial archives across disciplines, plumbs the affective and intimate spaces of empire by way of our mother’s memoir, and our maternal grandfather’s vast personal photographic archive of Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company).

Image by Don Wong