on the last land with the last few things
summer 2025 | Utrecht (NL)
graduation project from MA Fine Arts and Design, program Expanded Scenography (2 years full-time)
De Nijverheid
June 26-29, 2025
a spatial installation of sounds and voices, inviting the spectator to encounter fragments of a story through movement, listening, and interaction with stone, water, and soil.
a story that weaves fiction with reality, or rather, an imagined and anticipated reality of the last land.
by definition, a last land is a piece of earth abandoned
after intense human exploitation and abuse.
over time, it becomes unexploitable, unproductive, dead.
this work is rooted in my scenographic practice of staging what i call dramaturgies of the real:
a staged space, fed by real elements: sounds of genocide, burnt forests, landscapes shaped by extraction and collapse, and found objects, materials and stories from the sites i am working with.
the everyday offers me traces. echoes. ashes.
and so the question arose: what comes after the ashes?
i play with contrast,
the ground as a heavy, dense material, with many layers of histories, ecologies, politics.
“and all the weight it carries,” (quote from the vocals)
and above it, sounds that are floating, flickering, light and high-pitched,
crossing the space from one side to the other,
drawing the spectator into an exploration of the space
from one point to another,
following whispered fragments
to find, to compose, to weave together.
the last land is trying to reinvent itself, to be reborn, to become again,
but only through the accumulation of actions we take.
before they enter, spectators pick one of the three elements: stone, soil, or water.
an element they attend to, connect with, restore in the space as they move through.
tactility and the invitation to play with the space, transforming it, leaving a trace, an echo is another scenographic tool i work with to activate sensorial engagement
and a physicality that brings spectators back into their bodies, into their realities rather than pulling them away from it.
and as they move
they listen
to what hides
deep inside the walls.
and so
the story,
a found-memory,
or an archive,
has been told.
for us to take the responsibility
to pass it on,
a poetic action
an urgency,
a need to remember
and a necessity to become.
before they leave, they receive a postcard from the thesis carrying a score; a poetic action
a series of 30 post card, each with a different invitation.
more about from earth to earth project on this website: https://archivedpractices.com/earthproject
contact:
rymrymhayouni@gmail.com
+31 623550089
amsterdam - tunis