Basel Zaraa

An invitation to sit in Laila’s chair and explore the objects, photographs, sounds, and smells of her family’s story of exile.

"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 Zaraa’s daughter began to ask him about his home growing up. Unable to take her there, he instead crafted a model of his childhood home in Yarmouk – once the largest Palestinian refugee camp, now mostly destroyed.

Dear Laila shares the Palestinian experience of displacement and resistance through the story of one family, exploring how war and exile shape domestic and public space. With the model of Zaraa’s home and an audio track played through an old walkman, Dear Laila uses the retelling of memories and tactile details to bring this now destroyed place to life.


*The installation is experienced by a single audience member at a time. Book by email bilheteira@tndm.pt.

Credits

By Basel Zaraa Commissioned by Good Chance Theatre with support from Arts Council England Narration in English Basel Zaraa Narration in Portuguese Abdeljelil Larbi Translator and script editor Emily Churchill Zaraa Sound engineer Pete Churchill

This performance is copresented with Teatro Nacional D. Maria II.