Permanent Trespass
2026 (post-production). 45 min., 4K UHD video. English/Arabic.
In Permanent Trespass, two traveling eulogists (“professional mourners”) meet on a dire tableau—an unspecified Art Nouveau villa. They pass the time in conversation, oscillating between recollection, formality, and dark humor. Their digressions build toward a performance within a performance: the delivery of a commissioned funerary text.
The duo is continuously interrupted by a spectral third voice, weaving turns of phrase from the headlines of “the American Century.” Who or what is being mourned? From Beirut to Sarajevo, an encounter that begins within a personal frame eventually unravels into a very different sort of historical reckoning.
Early draft screened at Netwerk Aalst, as part of Century Bingo (solo exhibition).
WRITTEN, DIRECTED, AND PERFORMED BY
Sanja Grozdanić
Basyma Saad
VOICE ACTING
Elijah Jackson
ADDITIONAL APPEARANCES
Elisabeth Horth
Laura Herman
Yasaman Tamizhar
COMMISSIONED BY
Netwerk Aalst
Empac/ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
ADDITIONAL FUNDING
Teatro Bastardo
SPECIAL THANKS
Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, Tobi Haslett, Jelly Luise, Laura Hermann, Yasaman Tamizkar, Godart Bakkers, Katherine C.M. Adams, Maison Hannon (Brussels)