IN THIS TOGETHER?
‘In This Together?’, my collaboration with photographer Ahmad Rezai and artists: Zeinab Nourzehi (Refugees Art), Baqir Safari and Maisam Ali.
How our experiences of lockdown – fear, loneliness, disruption, life on pause – are the everyday reality for people seeking refuge.
Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Featured in Fish Food Magazine and shown at Midwest Poetry Film Fest (Art Lit Lab), 2021.
ILLEGAL
A lament which links our Irish history of exile and loss with present-day drownings of migrants who are trying to cross to Europe.
Doolin Writers’ Weekend Poetry Film Runner Up 2019
Written, performed & edited: Bairbre Flood. Set/puppet design, animation & film: Elaine Lucey. ‘Ya Leil La Trouh’ song lyrics: Ruba Shamshoum
COMMON GROUND
An audio poem mixed with a voice note from a resident in Moria Camp, Greece was included on Keywords (produced by Zoe Comyns) broadcast on RTEXtra and RTE Radio 1 in May and July 2020.
CALAIS by Jessica Traynor
EOGHAN by Galar Dub
CRITHIR
flash fiction published in The Cormorant
THE DISAPPEARING
Yul Brynner’s bald head is on the wall opposite,
an advert for used cars:
‘Yul never beat our offers’.
You take a drag on your cigarette,
the slight dawn light unflattering.
A green tint to the window sill.
George Wassouf is playing low on your phone
and you’re suddenly reminded
of the street you used to live on.
Maybe they’ll rebuild it someday, I say.
You tut –
not like our tuts –
but the Arabic tut which means no,
Will they rebuild my neighbours
from their graves
you say.
FEJIRA // TO CROSS
First place at the Fish Short Memoir Prize 2019, published in Fish Anthology 2019 launched at West Cork Literary Festival.
“This powerful piece gives sharp insights into the lives of refugees living in the Jungle camp near Calais who want to cross the English Channel. In this ‘shadow world at the heart of Europe’ lives are a series of survivals. Survival of failed attempts to cross, survival of torture, survival of health, survival of hearing each other’s stories, survival of boredom and waiting, and finally survival of a terrifying catastrophe within the camp. The writer, a ‘tourist’ in the camp, describes the compelling details of daily life alongside the perpetual despair. A vivid, clear-eyed account which witnesses the facts of these precarious ‘blow-apart lives struggling to start again’ and makes them plain to see.” – Chrissie Gittins
Read excerpt here.
Wander Live Event with digital art films by Silvio Severino // Homepage