Until This Elegy Ends

at Darat Al Fanun, October 2024 – March 2025

Until This Elegy Ends brings together interconnected works, each tracing the continuity of people, identities, and cultures. Among them is documentation of ancient olive orchards in Deir Mimas in Southern Lebanon, where Israeli white phosphorus airstrikes have targeted many trees, while others stand as quiet symbols of generational vitality.

Another work, a sound sculpture, evokes the haunting call of a siren, exposing the fragility of settler colonial safety in Palestine and bearing witness to silenced realities.

The exhibition also draws on the musical legacy and philosophy of Halim El-Dabh, whose composition after the Nakba underscores sound as a vessel that can carry meanings and memory across time.

And fruit bearing native trees sourced from the oldest refugee camp in Jordan are paired with collaborations with musicians from the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, transforming personal memories into sonic testimonies that speak to the deep connections between Palestinians and their land.

Together, these works function as interconnected elegies—mourning the profound loss unfolding around us while also echoing survival. They testify to the enduring relationship between people and land, suggesting that memory is not passive but an active force—one that moves through generations, bears life, and shapes new realities in defiance of the persistent threat of erasure.