HOME/LAND

Conceived as a living installation, HOME/LAND can be explored without any set temporality. Audience members move freely, advancing from one space to another at their own pace.

HOME/LAND explores the concept of “home” and the idea of where we come from through a collection of stories placed on lined up chairs, to be read under the light of a lamp. These stories reflect how the places we’ve lived in shape who we are, numerous testimonies talk about exile, identity, otherness, torn out or found roots. By immersing themselves in these personal stories, audience members are invited to reflect on and question their own histories and the ephemeral nature of all things.

Beyond a show, HOME/LAND is an experience. An intimate, personal journey, along the paths of individual and collective memories.

The installation is open 4 hours each day :

Audience members enter in small groups, for 3 hours

Average length of stay : 60 minutes

Each audience member visits the installation in a specific order and can spend as long as they wish.

Capacity : 110 people, 10 people enter every 15 minutes

Ages 14 and up

Press

Begat Theater is a master at creating intimate installations in public spaces. Home/Land (…) touches the heart once again, weaving together the life stories of anonymous individuals and drawing on their personal histories. The experience is somewhere between a sound walk, a performance and the art of storytelling. It begins with a pleasant open-air reading room, where you can immerse yourself in different booklets, each containing an individual true story. There’s the Russian exile who never saw his parents again, the grandmother who knew the shame of divorce, or the pain of miscarriage. We’d like to read them all, but from their tables, the “archivists” – volunteers trained by the company – invite the audience to join them. And from a short text, each word carefully chosen, they invite us, eyes closed, to bring out the most precious of our memories.

La Provence – September 28, 2023

The distinctive feature of Begat Theater is its ability to create the conditions for an intimate, fragile experience, while at the same time occupying the public space. HOME/LAND is a jewel of sensitivity that is no exception to the rule. (…) The physical journey through the installation is matched by an inner journey: HOME/LAND is a preparation that slowly infuses each person who passes through it, delicately stirring up traces of the past, bringing back sensations, places and faces. It’s an intelligently thought-out process: starting from an individual, inner experience, it offers time for introspection, then the opportunity to share. It’s an emotional trajectory that first encourages us to plunge into ourselves before leading us outwards and towards others, combining in a single movement these two poles that we tend too often to oppose. (…) HOME/LAND is a magic trick that transmutes reality into poetry, an intimate memory into a moment of shared humanity. Under the auspices of Tarot cards scattered along the way, this difficult-to-classify work opens a breach in our often guarded attitudes and brings light into our hearts.

La Terrasse – July 9, 2024

Partners

Ministère de la culture et de la communication
- Direction Générale de la Création Artistique (DGCA) – aide nationale à la création arts de la rue
- DRAC PACA

Département des Alpes de Haute-Provence

Région Sud

La Garance, Scène nationale de Cavaillon (84)

Théâtre Durance, Scène Nationale de territoire(s), Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban (04)

Théâtre Joliette,  Scène conventionnée art et création – expressions et écritures contemporaines, Marseille (13)

ECLAT, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Aurillac (15)

Théâtre La Passerelle, Scène Nationale de Gap et des Alpes du Sud (05)

Le Citron Jaune, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Port Saint Louis du Rhône (13)

Le Boulon, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Vieux-Condé (59)

Pôle arts de la scène, Friche,Belle de Mai, Marseille (13)

Research and international collaboration :

Face Contemporary Theater Fund (USA)

NET TEN – Network of Ensemble Theaters, Travel and Exchange Network (USA)

Lieux publics Centre national des arts de la rue et de l’espace public & pôle européen de production, dans le cadre du programme ὁδός – les chemins, Marseille (13)

HOME/LAND is a collective project that has given life to two distinct creations: HOME/LAND USA and HOME/LAND France. Seven multidisciplinary artists from 3 French and North American companies participated in the development phase of the project: Dion Doulis and Karin Holmström from Begat Theater (France); Giovanni Alva, Michael Cavazos, Lucille Dawson and Jonathan Walters from Hand2Mouth (Portland, Oregon, USA); Erika Latta based in Vancouver, BC (Canada) from WaxFactory
(New York, USA).