Frictional Conversations - The Script
Line up: yasmine eid-sabbagh, Sary Moussa

Join us for the opening event of yasmine eid-sabbagh’s Frictional Conversations - The Script running at If I Can't Dance from June 20 till July 11. Through live performances, the project continues a twenty-five-year process of (counter-)archiving a large repository of photographs from Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

After taking different forms over the years, the archive is (de-)materialized into a script for an experimental radio show, developed by eid-sabbagh with musician and composer Sary Moussa and her collaborators in Burj al-Shamali. The script is performed live across four expanded reading/broadcasting events, staged from within a soft environment created from carpets donated by members of our network. During these experimental broadcasts, reading moments are interwoven with electronic music by Moussa and archival fragments, blurring the boundaries between past, present, and future. Rather than using images as static records, the script activates them as prompts for speculation and storytelling, foregrounding the memories, desires, and subjectivities of five generations of Palestinians.

The opening performance on June 20 is hosted by yasmine eid-sabbagh and Sary Moussa, who will also engage in an after-talk with the audience. The following broadcast feature a response and talk with Amsterdam-based artists DJ Lynnée Denise (27 June), Francisca Khamis Giacoman (4 July), and Ola Hassanian (11 July).

Public programme:

Outside these events, the carpeted environment remains open as a reading retreat (Wednesday–Friday, 12–17h) and gathering space for workshops and reading circles with Tidal Studies, Book Block Brigade, Reading Vigil for Palestine, Sobhi Khatib/BeSahara, shy*play, and Oo(y)ster Mums. The opening is accompanied by the symposium Rhythms of Anti-colonial Struggles: Radio Archives and the Transmission of Solidarities organized in collaboration with de Appel at Grond on June 21. Convened by eid-sabbagh in dialogue with scholar Layal Ftouni, it features contributions by Rayya Badran, Alia Mossallam, and DJ Lynnée Denise.

Read more about the project and the whole 3-week programme on the PROGRAMME BOOKLET.

[ID: A special typographic rendition of the Arabic word for 'script' in a bright magenta pink is displayed over a brick red background. The typography presents spikes around the letters, making the word look electrified and emanating resonance and vibrations]