In Memorial Service – a collaborative performance project with Mikhail Karikis – three Palestinian voices recite the names of 369 Palestinian villages that were destroyed by Israeli forces during the 1948 Nakba.

Ashery shredded 369 envelopes with the names of the Palestinian villages written on them. In parallel, a projection of a continuously shifting map displays the radical geopolitical effects of the evacuation of the Palestinian villages. As the name of a lost village is verbalised, a white dot appears in the geographical location of its absence. The moving map gives a sense of the level of ‘emptying-out’ of Palestine that took place between 1947-9. At certain points the performers Owen Parry and Rebecca Collins, dressed in white shirts and dark trousers fall to the floor.

Between the voices that bring the names of the villages to life and the mechanical sound of the shredder, which eradicates them in a symbolically official manner, Mikhail sings. He employs traditional mourning vocal techniques, which distort language and break his voice. His compositions are inspired by a number of diasporic communities’ mourning folk songs world wide.

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Additional project information: Welcome Home dedicated project website

Interview: Predrag Pajdic, ‘Oreet Ashery’, In Focus, March 2007