Farah Saleh | A Fidayee Son in Moscow

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A Fidayee Son in Moscow (2014)

After the 82’ Israeli war on Lebanon, the Palestinian leadership shattered all over the Arab World and the PLO future was uncertain. Hoping to secure a safer and a more stable life to their sons, some of the Palestinian left leaders decided to send their sons to an international boarding school in the Soviet Union, the Interdom. The school was built in 1933 in Ivanovo North-East of Moscow to host children of revolutionary parents from all over the world as a form of solidarity between nations, including the children of Mao, Tito, La Pasionaria and my brother.

The interactive video dance installation portrays a school day in the Interdom from a physical point of view. It provides gestures and movements students used to do in their history class, singing class, physics class and creative writing class, while also analyzing the historical context of the school. The installation asks the public to try these gestures themselves as an attempt to make them live the Interdom experience.

This work is a form of self-historicization and re-appropriation of the history of a certain socio-political group, more than a form of nostalgia for a certain era, and if so, it would be for a nostalgia that is prospective, which reflects on the past and present of the children of the left of a certain generation, while questioning the future of the current one.

This work has also been transformed in 2016 into a live interactive lecture performance of 15 minutes.

Credits

Concept and performance: Farah Saleh

Video: Sari Hammouriand Zina Zarour

Production: A.M Qattan Foundation

Special thanks to:

Nicola Perugini, Qais Saleh, Sawsan Shunnar,

Saleh Ra'fat, Ruba Saleh, Viviana Cecchia,

Layali Hamayel, Diaa Jubeh, khaled Fanni,

Svetlana Haddad, Sasha Bezrodnova,

Saint George School (Ramallah),

Latin Patriarchate School (Brizeit),

Studio 2000, i-print.

©Sari Hammouri

Exhibitions

Qalandia International Biennial (Ramallah) October 2014, The Mosaic Rooms (London) January 2016, Granoff Center (Providence) April 2016, Pentedattilo Film Festival (Reggio Calabria) December 2016.

Performances

Modern Movements Festival (Providence) April 2016, Dance Base (Edinburgh) Feb 2017, Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival (Ramallah) April 2017, Hostscena Festival (Alesund) Sep 2017.

History class

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