BASEL ZARAA
Dear Laila
/PS-UK/
“Dear Laila, you are five now and have started to ask me where I grew up, and why we can’t go there. This is me trying to give you an answer.“
The seeds of Dear Laila were planted when Basel’s five-year-old daughter began to ask him about his home growing up. Unable to take her there, he decided he would try to bring the place to her, by creating a model of his childhood home in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.
Dear Laila shares the Palestinian experience of displacement and resistance through the story of one family, exploring how war and exile are experienced through the everyday, the domestic, and the public space. An intimate, interactive installation experienced by one audience member at a time, Dear Laila uses the retelling of memories and tactile details to bring this now destroyed place to life.
Duration: 20 min
Language: English/Estonian
Age restriction: this installation is not recommended for children who are younger than 11 years.
Performances:
Thu, 2.07 at 13.00–22.00 at House in Rakvere (BUY TICKET, ticket sale starts at 15th of April at 12.00)
Fri, 3.07 at 13.00–22.00 at House in Rakvere (BUY TICKET, ticket sale starts at 15th of April at 12.00)
Thu, 4.07 at 13.00–22.00 at House in Rakvere (BUY TICKET, ticket sale starts at 15th of April at 12.00)
Fri, 5.07 at 13.00–17.00 at House in Rakvere (BUY TICKET, ticket sale starts at 15th of April at 12.00)
This is an installation intended for one person at a time. We recommend arriving at least 5 minutes before your scheduled time!
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Basel Zaraa is a UK-based Palestinian artist whose work uses the senses to bring audiences closer to experiences of exile and war, and who creates art in order to face, express and understand the trauma that his community lives with.
His current installation, ‘What Will We Do Without Exile?’ is an immersive, multi-sensory installation that creates a lush world within a refugee tent, inviting audiences to imagine life beyond occupation and war. Since 2022 he has also been touring ‘Dear Laila’, an intimate, a one-person-at-a-time installation centred around the recreation of a destroyed family home, which received the ZKB Audience Award 2023. His previous work includes ‘As Far As My Fingertips Take Me’, a collaboration with Tania El Khoury, which was awarded Outstanding Production at the Bessie Awards in 2019.
His work has been shown at over 50 venues and festivals across five continents.
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Author: Basel Zaraa
Commissioned by Good Chance Theatre.
With support from Arts Council England.
Translator and script editor: Emily Churchill Zaraa
Sound engineer: Pete Churchill
