“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 Laila began to ask him about his home growing up. 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 Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

Dear Laila shares the Palestinian experience of displacement and struggle through the story of one family. Using retelling of memories and tactile details, it explores how war and exile are experienced through the everyday, the domestic, and the public space – to bring this now destroyed place to life.

Read an interview with Basel Zaraa

Booking for the Palestine Museum:

The work is experienced by one person at a time. To reserve a slot via e-mail please send your preferred visiting time to  tom@counterpoints.org.uk

Credits:

Originally commissioned by Good Chance Theatre, with support from Arts Council England.

Translator and script editor: Emily Churchill Zaraa

Sound engineer: Pete Churchill

Photo credit: Mohab Mohamed

Presented by Counterpoints Arts as part of the Platforma festival 2023 in collaboration with the Palestine Museum, Bristol. The Palestine Museum was founded in 2013, and is run entirely by volunteers It explores Palestinian culture, heritage and daily life.