Current Projects (2024-25)

HOME – the memory of displacement and resistance of the Palestinian diaspora in Europe

HOME presents the work ‘Dear Laila’ by Palestinian artist Basel Zaraa in five different festivals in Europe: Anti Festival / Kuopio (FI), Mladi Levi Festival / Ljubljana (SI), Farout Festival / BASE Milano (IT), Periferico Festival / Modena (IT), and Umbria Factory / Foligno (IT).

HOME creates a bridge across Europe around the urgency of showing support to the Palestinian population and its artistic community, and raising awareness about the topics of refugees’ lived experiences both through the presentation of the performance and a public programme of talks and training.

‘Dear Laila’ is an interactive performance for one person at a time which creates a very intimate experience of Basel Zaraa’s childhood in Yarmouk refugee camp. Its relationship with a single participant at a time and its delicate artistic language involving the audience’s senses and bodies, builds a very strong connection with the audience and creates a moving experience for anyone who takes part in the performance. In each festival, the performance audio will be available in Italian, Slovene, Finnish, English and Arabic.

HOME will promote a long-term transnational collaboration between different festivals focused on socially engaged art by promoting fairness, artistic innovation and sustainability.

Perform Europe Grant

EUR 32,000

Partners

Collettivo Amigdala / Festival Periferico

Italy

BASE Milano / Farout Festival

Italy

Gestioni cinematografiche e teatrali / Zut!

Artistic Works

Dear Laila

Producers: Basel Zaraa

text

Dear Laila is an interactive performance created by Basel Zaraa, that recreates his destroyed family home in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

The seeds of Dear Laila were planted when Basel’s 5-years-old daughter, Laila, began to ask him where she came from and why they could not return to their place of origin. 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.

‘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 dedicated to one audience member at a time, ‘Dear Laila’ uses the retelling of memories and tactile details to bring this now destroyed place to life.

Audiences are guided through the performance by a series of action cards, which invite them to listen to a nine-minute audio piece and to explore a model of the home Zaraa grew up in, read a letter, and finally take home a pinch of salt in a matchbox, echoing a ritual performed by the artist’s grandmother.