Lawn of Displacement is a participatory performative act which was done in respond to the Palestinian poet and author Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah. In his book Barghouti remembers a time when he was a student of literature at a university in Cairo In 1967. When he heard that a war had broken out between Israel and other Arab countries Barghouti writes:

 ‘‘Until this day I do not know why with my arm I drew a wide arc in the air and, aiming at the trunk of that palm tree, hurled the bottle of ink with all my strength so in that midnight-blue collision it burst into fragments of glass that settled on the lawn.’

Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah, Bloomsbury, 2004, p. 2.

In interpreting his action through this performative act I wanted to get closer to the narrator’s feelings, as well as other people who have been displaced from their homeland.

Vigil – ‘(noun) 1. Night watch. A period spent in doing something through the night, e.g. watching, guarding, or praying.’ From: Encarta Dictionary (on-line).

Lawn of Displacement was part of Space for Peace, a vigil organised by Winchester University’s Professor June Boyce-Tillman at Winchester Cathedral on 26th January 2012.