FFF3 | Gardens Speak

There are houses in Syria with graves hidden in their gardens. There, in rear courtyards not public cemeteries, well hidden beneath the soil and often without a grave marker of any sort, the beloved dead killed in the first mass anti-government demonstrations of 2011-13 lie safe. Even funerals could turn families into targets for the regime, and by burying their dead at home could the living -parents, comrades, relatives and friends- stay safe.

“Gardens Speak” invites you to open your ears to the true stories of ten dead Syrian individuals through the accounts of their relatives and friends as well as found recordings evidencing their last moments.

The stories of ten men and women who were killed in Syria in 2011-13, during the first years of the insurgency, tell their dreams, fears and struggles, their unknown and unspeakable histories are brought into the light by the award-winning Lebanese artist, winner of the Total Theater Innovation Award and the Arches Brick Award. As El Khoury notes: “Grief can mobilize consciences against the oppressors. Relating the lives and deaths of these ten martyrs can become an act of resistance against the regime's efforts to kill even the dead.”

Just ten audience members at a time are invited into this rite of memory. They are called upon to engage body and soul, politically and emotionally, as they squat over the 'graves' of ten victims of opression.