I Will Bury My Love Around You 1

This work was created in response to poetic texts written by Habibah Sheikh, a nomadic performance artist originally from Lebanon, and the curator of the exhibition, Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me). In the text, a character named Ruba experiences the destruction of war firsthand and becomes a refugee in the process. This work uses the imagery of violence to evoke the emotional and physical vulnerability of certain Mediterranean themes...such as being without asylum.

Act 1, Scene 4, Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me)

BACKGROUND SONG FOR A FIELD OF DEAD BODIES:

Postures of love. Postures of death.
The deceased were like portraits of the living.
The contorted bodies lying one on top of the other
embracing each other in contortions of protection and care.
Postures of love. Postures of death.
Men and women in turmoil.
In bewilderment. Disabled by authority.
The corpses of the elderly collapsed.
suffering faces of children.
Postures of love. Postures of death.
Brother relying on brother. The physical contortions
of sisters appreciating sisters..
Postures of love. Postures of death.
The deceased were like portraits of the living.

In Mejri’s work, the body is haunted by energies to be identified. Each action has internal reverberations; each line is loaded, pulsing with a violence that springs out of internal latent energy. Here, violence is not violence in itself. It stems from a very soft place that has been wounded.