This part-memoir, part-immersive archive invites audiences inside a digital reconstruction of the creator’s childhood home on an intimate journey that follows the complexities of her relationship with her mother across three decades marked by regional conflicts and her eventual migration.
Nazar unfolds as experiential poetry within evil eye protection sessions, shared regularly over the years by mother and daughter and communicated primarily through touch.
Slowly moving past personal narratives, embodied experiences prompt audiences to consider these practices and their virtual extensions not only as methodologies of care but as ritualistic acts of soft resistance.
The experience is informed by an ongoing research that delves into the constellation of protection practices, passed-down from mother-to-daughter for generations across the Levant.
It delivers exciting, new ways of archiving intangible cultural heritage, at risk of being erased while pushing the boundaries of what is achievable in terms of immersive performance and embodied sensory experience.
Nazar culminates in a magical choreography of the senses, complete with audio-recordings of surveillance drones, motion-capture of unarchived gestures and chants that seal a covenant between a people and their land, moon, clouds, stars and vines.
Created by Lara Kobeissi
Creative Technology and XR Development Pete Roobol
Music and Sound Design Lead Sarmad Louis
Sound Design Rawane Khater
XR Art Lara Kobeissi
Performance Design Consultancy Hanane Hajj Ali and Sarmad Louis
Contributors:
Salam Ali Sbeity
Soad Jrady
Lina and Itaf Karaki
Sahar and Yusra Kobeissi
Funded by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC)
R&D was supported by Arts Council England (ACE) and B3 Media