The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken is a 10 year long personal project in which I reconnect to my roots and work collaboratively with the Bedouin community of the Jebelya tribe to explore the notion of belonging and the interconnectedness of people and land. The project focuses on the process of finding and seeking the meaning of belonging cited through the Bedouin community of St. Catherine, South Sinai, Egypt. The community are participants in the creative process, they’ve contributed with their traditional mediums such embroidery, poetry, sound and storytelling. The result is a dance, a conversation with the Sinai Bedouin community as we explore what it means to belong, what is this indescribable connection to the land that we all long for and the indigenous experience that is filled with both sorrow and celebration. Highlighting the social injustice indigenous communities undergo while celebrating, honouring and learning from indigenuity. The project attempts to understand the layers of an identity. I believe it’s a common human emotion to seek a definition of one’s identity, yet its complexity is often ignored, creating flattened labels. With this dialogue, I’m building a bridge between the voices of the Bedouin community and the western audiences who have long seen the Bedouins and many other indigenous communities through a romanticized gaze.