Twenty-eight showings of Gardens Speak across five continents produced an archive of audience letters written as part of the performance. These handwritten letters, artifacts of each performance, provide insight into the varied audience experiences of Gardens Speak, including their reflections on politics, empathy, loss, and death. “Tell me what I can do” is a sentence written in a number of audience letters, asking the martyrs of Gardens Speak for guidance. In this installation, the artist asks visitors what to do with the accumulated material—evidence of our encounter and our shared responsibility.

About Tania El Khoury

Tania El Khoury is a live artist whose work focuses on audience interactivity and is concerned with the ethical and political potential of such encounters. She creates installations and performances in which the audience is an active collaborator. El Khoury’s work has been translated into multiple languages and shown in 32 countries across six continents in spaces ranging from museums to cable cars. El Khoury is currently a visiting professor and festival co-curator at Bard College’s Fisher Center. She is associated with Forest Fringe collective of artists in the UK and is a co-founder of Dictaphone Group in Lebanon, a research and performance collective aiming at questioning our relationship to the city and redefining its public space.

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The New York Times – ‘Gardens Speak’ – A Graveside Encounter With Lives Lost in Syria

Resonance Radio – Joshua Sofaer and Tania El Khoury – On Participation