May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: Only sounds that tremble through us

May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: only sounds that tremble through us, is part of an on-going project that examines how communities bear witness to and narrate experiences of loss, violence and displacement through performance. Working with a collection of archival and online footage of everyday communal songs and dance from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, these collections of memory are merged with new performances developed in collaboration with Palestinian electronic musicians Makimakkuk, Haykal, Julmud and dancer Rima Baransi. Responding to movement and sound, they build connections across time and reaffirm the way fractured communities resist their own erasure by reclaiming their right to space both in the past and in the present.

Resisting collectively through song and dance as modes of resilience, in this installation of video collages, fragments of text and video footage of old and new performances are juxtaposed and projected onto concrete and steel panels, reminiscent of the apartheid wall, echoing physical fragmentation and destruction.

May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: only sounds that tremble through us, examines the memories held by the land as well as by animals and people. It asks how life can be sustained despite the impossible conditions of erasure and how to imagine different possibilities of living beyond mere survival.