- Installation
Dear Laila
Accessibility
Unfortunately, the venue is not accessible to wheelchair users every day. See below a list of dates and times when the venue does have wheelchair access:
-Friday 23 May – between 12:00 – 18:00
-Saturday 24 May – between 12:00 – 18:00
-Tuesday 27 May – between 12:00 – 21:00
-Wednesday 28 May – between 12:00 – 21:00
-Friday 30 May – between 12:00 – 16:30
-Saturday 31 May – between 12:00 – 13:00
Disclaimer
This performance consists of time slots. Make sure you arrive 10 minutes before the start.
An intimate, interactive installation for one spectator at a time. Through a collection of photos, videos, sounds, and memorabilia, we piece together fragments from the life of a Palestinian family. The story follows a father explaining to his daughter where he grew up and why they cannot go there, reflecting displacement, resistance, and the unrelenting fight for justice.
“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 asking about his childhood home. Unable to take her there, he decided to bring the place to her by building a model of his childhood home in Yarmouk, a 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 shape everyday life—both in private and public spaces. This intimate, interactive installation, experienced by one audience member at a time, uses the retelling of memories and tactile details to breathe life into a place now lost to destruction.
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Basel Zaraa
Credits
By Basel Zaraa
Commissioned by Good Chance Theatre, with support from Arts Council England
Production Assistant: Ward Zaraa
Script editor: Emily Churchill Zaraa
Sound engineer: Pete Churchill
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