AS FAR AS ISOLATION GOES

Tania El Khoury & Basel Zaraa

TSOTF + Wellcome Collection Co-Commission

Presented at:

Wellcome Collection as part of Care and Destruction 2019.

As Far As Isolation Goes is a collaboration between live artist Tania El Khoury and musician and street artist Basel Zaraa. Built on their previous collaboration entitled As Far As My Fingertips Take Me in which El Khoury commissioned Zaraa to record a rap song inspired by the journey his sisters made from Damascus to Sweden. In As Far As Isolation Goes, Zaraa and Tania worked together to create another iteration of their previous piece focused on mental and physical health experiences of refugees in the United Kingdom. Zaraa created a song inspired by conversations with friends and colleagues who have recently claimed refuge in UK. 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.

Bios:
Tania El Khoury is a live artist creating installations and performances focused on audience interactivity and concerned with the ethical and political potential of such encounters. Her work has been translated and presented in multiple languages in 32 countries across six continents, in spaces ranging from museums to cable cars to the Mediterranean Sea. She is the recipient of the 2017 International Live Art Prize and the 2011 Total Theatre Innovation Award and Arches Brick Award. Tania is currently a visiting assistant professor and festival co-curator at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. She is affiliated with Forest Fringe and is the co-founder of the research and performance collective Dictaphone Group. She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from Royal Holloway. In 2018, a survey of her work entitled ear-whispered: works by Tania El Khoury took place in Philadelphia.

Basel Zaraa is a spoken word artist and percussionist who writes on themes of exile and resistance. He has collaborated with a wide range of international artists including Akala, Guildhall youth project (Im)possibilities, Palestinian hip-hop group Katibeh Khamseh, Arabic fusion band Raast and funk band Shokunin. He is part of the cast of PsycheDELIGHT's 'Borderline' satire about the Calais camp, in which he performs original music and DIY sound effects. He is also a visual and stencil graffiti artist and is currently touring with Tania El Khoury's 'As Far As My Fingertips Take Me'.

Connect on social media - @taniaelk #Migration #RefugeeHealth #Borders