The piece was produced for Qalandiya International, a biennial exhibition. The 2016 edition, “This Sea is Mine,” contemplates the subject of return and refuge for Palestine and the region. It consisted of a series of exhibitions, performances and talks, film screenings, workshops and tours, between October 5-31, across Palestine and the diaspora, in Haifa, Gaza, Beirut, Amman, and London.

“Variation of C” is a spoken word performance piece written and directed by NaoKo TakaHashi, performed by Tina Gverovic and Terry Kirkbride, Matthew Stock, and NaoKo TakaHashi. A soundscape is created using layers of voices, notations and repetitions.

It explores the theme of the exhibition, dealing with the notion of dis-location, dis-placement and re-location. The idea of using description rather than visual images highlights the significance of recorded materials used as proof of events. The text is fictitious on its own (without recorded materials), so to exaggerate this notion I used fictional narrative to mirror the factual elements. Using spoken word, shifting from still images (fixed moment: past) to moving images (fluid moments: present) within the framework, I aim to provoke multiple possible future scenarios.

The title came from the idea of Sea (ocean) = see (watch/watched) = C (a letter/ musical note). Sand dunes hum in musical note G and bees fly in E. Nature has it’s own music within and it was important for me to emphasize nature, especially the land, to create a contrast with people.

In the text, there are many references to the idea of migration;

• Borders on land, air and sea

• Destruction of landscape

• Erasing history

• Surveillance and mapping

• Absence of people as a metaphor for denial of their existence and death

• Using only traces of people to magnify their existence

• Dolphin: a critique of animal rights given more weight than human rights?

• The idea of a new beginning

As the text is written by an observer, the speakers’ voices and accents needed to be from outside of where the conflicts are. I write text in third person to make ‘I’ the ‘eye’ of the audience. The performers are scattered amongst the audience, in order to blur the boundary between the two groups. The idea of sharing and the audience being in the documentation was crucial in attempt to seek a new narrative together.