—Words inscribed on the tombstone of Emile Touma (1919-1985)

In this conversation with Sophie Ernst, a visual artist who explores architecture in relation to memory and cultural relativity in works that mix video projection and sculptural installation, Haya, who was also a prominent artist, talks about the childhood home of her husband Emile in Haifa. Unfortunately, Haya passed away in 2009, soon after their meeting.

These are edited excerpts from that conversation where Haya talks about home, memories, belonging, displacement and identity…

During the first LOSS workshop on the 22 of September 2018 at the University of Westminster I spoke about a public intervention in Wakefield, the Silent Empress (2012)1 . In my talk I summarised what motivated me to make the Silent Empress. I proposed that the work is a form of ‘Eingedenken’. ‘Eingedenken’ is a productive process; remembering the past in its present-day meaning. During the discussion we touched on the subject of apology several times. Some pointed out apologies often are insincere, commodified, or otherwise flawed. I shall repeat my ideas on the Silent Empress here, and add a short note on the concept of apology.

This paper considers landscape as a process, and focuses on drawing,mapping, and storytelling as performative actions. It takes the HOME projectas a case study, and demonstrates how images of landscape reveal, and also create, power relations. For the HOME project, artists, architects, and writers from Pakistan, India, Israel, and Palestine draw maps and vistas of places they once called home and were forced to leave. They do not point out thebeauty of the landscape, but rather emphasize their claim to memories of aparticular place. In this multifaceted artistic research project I look at how memories of specific topographies relate to identity and political claims. In particular, I view the act of drawing as an instrument of holding a graphical conversation with history.