Dear Laila: Creating vulnerable intimacy PuSh Play

Basel Zaraa discusses his intimate, one-on-one storytelling practice. Dear Laila runs Jan 20th-Feb 3rd at PuSh Festival.
Show Notes
Gabrielle Martin chats with Basel Zaraa about the installation Dear Laila. They talk about how this intimate installation uses objects to connect with patrons; how we use art to deal with personal and collective trauma; and how we can show big events as experienced by normal people.
Co-presented by Boca del Lupo and Pandemic Theatre.
Gabrielle and Basel ask the following questions and more:
How can Individual experiences tell political stories, even if it is something they have not chosen
How does Dear Laila build on Basel’s previous work?
How do we use art to deal with trauma, personally and collectively?
Why is this installation experienced by one person at a time? Is the personal approach able to connect people more to the experience?
How is the connection to story enhanced via interaction with objects (photos)?
How can we show big events as experienced by normal people?
About Basel Zaraa
Basel Zaraa is a UK-based Palestinian artist whose work uses the senses to bring audiences closer to experiences of exile and the search for identity. His current project, Dear Laila, is an interactive installation that recreates his destroyed family home in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. 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 40 venues and festivals across five continents.
Land Acknowledgement
Basel joins the podcast from Birmingham, UK.
Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
Gabrielle [00:00:01] Hello and welcome to PuSh Play, a PuSh Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form and Gabrielle Martin, PuSh's director of programming. And today's episode highlights how political histories are told through individual stories. I'm speaking with Basel Zaraa, the artist behind Dear Laila, which will be presented at PuSh Festival January 20th to February 3rd, excluding the 22nd, 28th and 29th 2024. An intimate interactive installation experienced by one audience member at a time, 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. Basel Zaraa is a UK based Palestinian artist whose work uses the senses to bring audiences closer to experiences of exile and the search for identity. I'm delighted to be able to share this insight into Basel's approach to weaving the personal and political. Here's my conversation with Basel. 
 
Gabrielle [00:01:06] Hi Basel. It's really nice to be in conversation with you. I'm Gabrielle. I'm the director of programming and I'm speaking with Basel Zaraa, the creator behind Dear Laila. Hi, Basel. 
 
Basel [00:01:17] Hello. Thank you Gabrielle.
 
Gabrielle [00:01:19] Yeah, and I just want to contextualize where I am. I'm on the unceded traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh). So this is colonially known as Vancouver. And I'm absolutely privileged to be here as a settler on this land. And where are you right now, Basel? 
 
Basel [00:01:40] I'm at my home in Birmingham, U.K. of the moment. 
 
Gabrielle [00:01:44] And the the audience, our listeners, our audience can't see, but you have a beautiful