Gardens Speak

“Even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins.” – Walter Benjamin

An intimate and poetic sound installation set in a Syrian garden, Gardens Speak invites you to listen to ten soulful narratives by placing your head on the ground.

One of today’s most provocative artists returns to the gardens of Syria as the setting for this powerful work. Lebanese-British artist Tania El Khoury tenderly recreates the memories and stories of a people under siege. Away from the war-ravaged streets, the dead bodies of activists and protestors from the early periods of the Syrian uprising are quietly laid to rest in gardens across the city.

In Gardens Speak, El Khoury invites you listen to the oral histories of ten ordinary people who were buried in these Syrian gardens. Each narrative has been carefully constructed with the friends and family members of the deceased to retell their stories as they themselves may have recounted it. They are compiled with found audio that evidences their final moments.​​

Just like the dead protect the living by not exposing them to further danger at the hands of the regime, we – the living – protect the dead by telling their stories, and not allowing their deaths to become instruments to the regime.

Lay your head quietly to the ground, and let the sounds from beneath speak to you – in a quietly powerful work that embraces life, death and the human condition. 

“This piece will change the way you think.” 

What’s on Stage

“A stark, moving theater piece by Tania El Khoury, brings us into painful intimacy with the human cost of the war.”  

The New York Times

“One of the most uniquely individual and profound theatrical experiences in recent memory.” 

Edge Media Network