Transmission 1948
1 - Reverence
A Collaboration with Yara Al Husseini
Transmission 1948 is a series of wearable objects emerging from an ongoing investigation into how memory, displacement, and anti-colonial resistance live in the body. Each object is a narrative—part witness, part evidence, part disruption—continuously signalling a past, a present, and a future. These pieces come from a place of power found in the fractures of living under occupation.
Visuals by Yara Al Husseini:
This wearable object (headwear) embodies the resurrection of the mountain deer—Ghazal. The Ghazal returns from a state of enforced scarcity in their own land. The Ghazal remembers drinking from ʿAyn al-Ghazal, the spring—and village—destroyed by occupiers in 1948. Now resurrected in human form, fusing with the Palestinian body, the resurrected Ghazal reclaims the water that was once stolen from it.
Sound by Nicolas Baviere:
This sound piece tells a story of transformation—from destruction to peace. The bass holds the weight of past traumas, first centered like a hovering memory, then panned left to the past. A bird screams, victorious: “We have our land back!” Hearing that, nature returns. On the right, we hear the future—river, insects, birds—life in balance. At the center, the ghazal reappears, joyful, back at its source. A boy, once starving in Gaza, now laughs as a ghost in a fruitful land.
Here, the audio tool “resonator” reshapes the bass from menace to harmony: on the left, one chord; on the right, spring water in another—coexisting without dissonance. Even the boy’s laughter shifts into a peaceful chord. It holds both sadness and hope—a brighter future rooted in his own land. Optimism, even in the face of political darkness, becomes the act of survival.
2 - Resonance
Visuals by Yara Al Husseini:
The wearable object (earpiece) represents a device that reimagines the soundscape of Palestine, as if occupation never happened. The first artwork presents the cumulative soundscape of living under occupation. The second artwork imagines what would otherwise be the personal-collective soundscapes of Palestine. The object is a hyper-listening device: not only attuned to sound, but capable of sensing, imaging, and curating a soundscape that is personally meaningful to its wearer.
Visuals by Yara Al Husseini:
The wearable object (eyewear) represents the foretelling of the future and the truth of the present and past. Like an owl’s brow structure does for the owl (aids channeling sound to heighten perception), this wearable represents the knowledge that Palestinian experience holds, when given to the citizens of the world to wear, they begin to see the global situation with enhanced clarity and can begin to take action.
Sound by Nicolas Baviere
Left:
This piece evokes the horror of war, genocide, and oppression. As in the visuals, the character is overwhelmed by the pain of what is happening in Palestine, especially Gaza. It begins with the voice of a journalist running for shelter while broadcasting live, followed by the gasp of a young girl—then the mayhem erupts. In the left ear, the sounds of war—screams, despair, ambulances, gunfire—grow and layer through harsh effects, multiplied to thousands, representing the intensity and scale of violence in one place and time. In the right ear, ten testimonies from Yara’s aunts speak of life under occupation. As they recount their stories, their voices begin to break apart, symbolizing how—even when Palestinians speak—the world refuses to listen. It reflects the West’s sustained abandonment of the Palestinian people. The piece ends with the cry of an elderly woman in Gaza, calling for help before being buried beneath the distorted roar of collapsing rubble. A horrifying daily truth.
Right:
When the character puts on the earpiece, clarity replaces chaos. Violence disappears. The character reimagines the world as if occupation never existed—as if everything were pure. They hear what freedom and joy mean to them.
The soundscape is built on a bed of birdsong and nature, with the voice of my grandfather telling a story of a world where people once lived in harmony. A traditional instrument plays a vast sympathetic chord, bringing peace to the landscape. Laughter fades in faintly as the character falls asleep with a smile. My grandfather’s voice is gradually transformed into music through a resonator effect, merging all elements into one harmonious whole.
Sound by Nicolas Baviere:
This track gathers the voices of those fighting for Palestinian liberation: Roger Waters, Marwan Barghouti, Francesca Albanese, Mahmoud Khalil, Riyad Mansour, Mahmoud Darwish, Rima Hassan, and two voices from Gaza—an old man and a little girl. Their calls blend into a single sonic protest, surrounding the listener. Each voice is slightly altered, breaking apart—revealing the censorship and silencing that shadows activist speech. Beneath them, a sequenced bass line begins in F and gradually dissolves into chaotic, unsynchronized notes, symbolizing how resistance begins with one voice and spreads beyond borders, across time. Above, a rock-driven drumbeat echoes protest anthems, reminding us that music moves people to act. Like the owl’s gaze, the sound centres what truly matters: not the silence of governments, but the actions of those who care.