What Will We Do Without Exile? is an immersive, multisensory installation that transforms the interior of a refugee tent into a lush world, inviting the audience to imagine a life beyond occupation. While generations of Palestinian bodies have been confined to tents, their imagination has never ceased reaching toward liberation.
Through sounds, images, objects, stories, and tactile materials, the work celebrates the natural and cultural richness of Palestine—past, present, and future—as a form of resistance. It is a tribute to imaginative capacity as a political act, transporting the audience into an alternative reality where the land and its people are finally free.
Bio
Basel Zaraa is a Palestinian artist based in the UK. His practice engages the senses to bring audiences closer to the lived realities of exile and war, creating works that confront and reframe the traumas experienced by his community.
In his recent work, What Will We Do Without Exile?, he invites audiences to imagine a liberated Palestine through a multisensory experience set inside a tent. Since 2022, he has also been touring Dear Laila, an intimate and personal installation set in a destroyed home, winner of the ZKB Audience Award 2023. With As Far As My Fingertips Take Me (in collaboration with Tania El Khoury), he received the Outstanding Production award at the 2019 Bessie Awards.
His works have been presented at over 50 festivals and institutions around the world.
Credits
A project by Basel Zaraa
In collaboration with: Emily Churchill Zaraa
Sound artist: Pete Churchill
Illustrator and newspaper graphic design: Charlotte Bailey
Voice: Sahar Qawasmi
Tour assistant: Ward Zaraa
With thanks to all interviewees
Commissioned by Counterpoints Arts and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, with the support of Moomin Characters
