As Far As Isolation Goes // Tania El Khoury and Basel Zaraa

As described in the Care & Destruction programme, “As Far As Isolation Goes uses touch, sound, and interactivity to bring audience members in contact with those faced with inhumane detention centres and a mental health system that disregard their political and emotional contexts.”

I faced a wall with headphones hung at the side and a seat facing sideways. Right next to it was a hole big enough for an adult arm to go through. I put on the headphones and started hearing haunting music. Suddenly a voice starts speaking and I’m told I need to put my arm through the hole - which is gently guided in. I listen to the voice telling me about systems and policies, about separation, isolation and loss. I feel strange, a little disoriented, and start to get lost in my own thoughts and feelings on the matter.

All the while, I feel the touch of someone who I cannot see drawing on my arm. It is a strange feeling for me and I start to concentrate on what’s going on around my arm. I find myself thinking “I wonder what is happening?”. It feels uncomfortable that my arm is being drawn on by an artist, who I am assume has lived the experiences and whose voice I am hearing through the recording in the headphones. My feeling is not unlike other feelings I have experienced when hearing the stories of migration, of loss, of struggle, of the need to be respected as a human being. This feels like it needs to be heard.

At this point I get lost in my thoughts about this particular issue and the audio is a bit of a blur. I quickly regain focus because I want to listen to and hear what’s being said. At the heart of it all is a story, a story where hope has been eradicated in places like Palestine, a story where people are literally fleeing for their lives, a story where upon reaching the so called promised land they’re treated as unwelcome guests, aliens, as not worthy of having access to opportunities. At the end, my arm is freed, and I feel relief, and passed to me is a piece of chalk to write what I like on the wall that divides us. For a fleeting moment, I feel I am the refugee and write a comment about how capitalism needs reform, as this struggle is related to the capitalistic ideals much of the world holds dear.

- Amar Hussein

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Tania El Khoury / Basel Zaraa

Music in Detention

‘The Jungle’: Putting the Refugee Crisis Centre Stage - NY Review of Books

The Jungle - National Theatre

EU Claims Migrant Crisis is Over - Quartz

My Head Hurts

My Head Hurts explored grief beyond that which stems from the loss of a person. In this talk chaired by Michael Bassett, the speakers shared their experiences of grief:

Artist, Jim Lockey spoke of ‘feeling orphaned’in the seeming conflict of being both an artist and a Christian, through the suspicion of a liberal art world towards churchgoers. He accepted the feelings of loneliness and loss that ensue. The latter is reflected in his work Boat, also exhibited at Normal? There he comments on the ‘entropy of all things’ by constructing and setting sail in a cardboard boat which inevitably disintegrates. 

Occupational Therapist Rayya Ghul relayed the grief experienced by her refugee parents through geographical changes and cultural shock.  Her German mother’s way of coping was to enact an elaborate, traditional German Christmas every year, even changing the curtains. Ghul also expressed her grief in ageing and accepting ‘the loss of a past that cannot be had and the loss of hopes for a future that is no longer possible’.

Clinical Psychologist Reinhard Guss raised the notion of political grief in terms of the current US presidency and Brexit. His own grief, as a German who calls the UK home, stems from being in a place where he is no longer welcome.  He remarked that although there seemed to be a pressure to ‘work’ on grieving or to refer to stages or psychological models, in reality the ways of grieving are less structured.

The panel all pointed to acceptance as key in coping with grief.  Rituals, in their widest sense, such as Lockey’s creating Boat or through the performative aspect of Ghul’s mother’s German Christmas may act to assuage grief.  My sense is that although every grief has a shape of its own and cannot be easily boxed or wittingly healed, and certainly not to a convenient timeline, through acceptance and practices like these there lies a possibility for its eventual transmutation.  

- Lubna Gem Arielle

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Boat - Jim Lockey

Ephemeral Art, What a Beautiful Thing - That Creative Feeling

Why the Five Stages of Grief Are Wrong - Psychology Today

Pema Chodron / When Things Fall Apart - BrainPickings

Physical Effects of Grief - BBC News

Talking to Grief - Denise Levertov

Grief is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter

LAST DREAM (ON EARTH) / Kai Fischer

Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, made his pioneering solo flight on 12 April 1961. Last Dream (On Earth) uses words, imagery and live music to recreate his experiences of countdown, takeoff, weightlessness, and fiery but safe return. 

It’s a spectacular soundscape, and each audience member hears it immersively and intimately through their own individual headphones. But in painful contrast with Gagarin’s triumphant tale, a second story is also told– the desperate journey of refugees trying to reach Spain across the sea from Morocco in a child’s dinghy.

The two stories of peril, bravery, persistence and adversity intermingle and interlink creatively, and we have to ask: could I do this? What would it take to make me risk everything? And how are people changed by such experiences?

Even before their sea journey starts, the refugees in this story have already travelled thousands of miles, been subjected to indignities and uncertainties, and had to bargain, plead and pay.

Little wonder that in Britain, studies show higher rates of depression and anxiety among refugees compared to the national population, with those at highest risk being children, and women who have experienced abuse on their journey.

Figures show that of all people who migrate, asylum-seekers are the most likely to have multiple traumas. Experts have called for more support for those in the asylum system, but the intense politicisation of the issue continues to dog decision-making.

Astronauts, by contrast with refugees, are pampered travellers, rigorously trained for their journeys into such a risky environment. But the psychological impact of living in space is a very topical issue. While Yuri Gagarin spent just 108 minutes on the first spaceflight, a journey to Mars at current speeds would take nine months, one way.

A critical factor in maintaining mental health en route will be discovering how to improve astronauts’ sleep, while light and dark cycles disrupt their natural circadian rhythms.

And could there be genetic impacts on the human body from spaceflight? NASA hopes to answer that question through studying Scott Kelly, a veteran of a year-long space mission, and his identical twin brother, Mark. (RM)

Last Dream (On Earth) ran at Assembly Hall until August 28th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/last-dream-on-earth 

First Orbit, a film featuring audio and imagery of Yuri Gagarin and his mission: http://www.firstorbit.org/watch-the-film

Refugee and asylum seeker health issues: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/health-of-migrants-in-the-uk-what-do-we-know/

Psychological wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers: http://isp.sagepub.com/content/57/2/107.abstract

Refugee council facts on asylum: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/policy_research/the_truth_about_asylum/facts_about_asylum_-_page_5

Medical monitoring on the International Space Station: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1025.html

Articles about Scott Kelly and his year-long space mission: http://www.nasa.gov/1ym/articles