I was invited to give a workshop on Madame Bomba. The invitation brought back a range of emotions. I did not hesitate to accept. Madame Bomba is a persona I created in 2014, when I walked through the streets of Beirut wearing a fake bomb—protesting death and staging an intervention during a new wave of violence. Since then, I have repeatedly refused invitations to “do” Madame Bomba in Western contexts. Context is not transferable. representation is exhibitionist in such context. The violence of Lebanon in 2014 is not the violence are witnessing today across Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and an ongoing genocide. This time, I accepted and chose to stay with her differently.
The workshop took place during a four-day research week at HZT in Berlin (Shooting, curated by Janez Janša and Sandra Umathum), in the middle of an ongoing genocide, and within a censored institutional atmosphere where people were being silenced, fired, and disciplined for pro-Palestinian positions; where even the word genocide was avoided. Instead of performing Madame Bomba, we built the costume. We stayed inside the studio. We talked while making. The workshop then became what we jokingly call in Arabic circles of revolutionary culturalism. Each day followed a theme. The rule was simple: we build the costumes together, we wear them only inside the studio. We watched, read, and talked while making. Once the costumes are on, we dance and warm up to Arabic pop songs.
We wore the costumes only there. We danced to Arabic pop songs. We watched films and materials on memory and the struggle against zionism, the history of clothing as protection and signifier in protest, and the military appropriation of such tactics. We watched interviews and statements by revolutionary figures; from the Zapatistas to Soha Bechara, to Ghassan Kanfani and Baader Meinhof group. We read poetry from Palestine. We memorised lines, forgot them again, and that was a small artistic stretgy... We spoke about censorship, humour, fear, and tactics.
We did mini-performances every day. Nothing was polished; every action remained tentative.
I consider this workshop a long performance, unfolding over four days, with eight participants.
The costume was worn, then removed. Some destroyed it. Some kept it.
“IF SUICIDE BOMBERS LOOKS LIKE YOU, I WOULD LOVE TO DIE”
Day 1: Costumes, perfromance and censorship.
On Day 1, we met and I introduced the persona of Madame Bomba, and the intervention that happened in 2014. I also made clear the problematics of speaking about such an intervention, in an artistic space, at a German institute, in Berlin, during an ongoing genocide, within a climate of censorship. We told different narratives of how the German state is engaging with tactics of violence and censorship, and how this could be a ground to inspire performance strategies.
In the second half of the day, I introduced what we will do in the workshop in general, to make this workshop ok: each participant will create their costume, and we can wear them only inside the studio space. Participation should end at the workshop if one doesn’t feel comfortable wearing the costumes. Everyone agreed to continue.
While we started creating the costumes, with minimum budget and tools, we also started talking about costumes and apparels. We spoke about IDF soldiers wearing Gazan and Southern Lebanese women’s clothes and lingerie, posing with them and displaying them. Then we spoke about how apparel and objects become extensions of bodies, amplifying them or exposing them, and the affect that comes with it.
Later, we hosted curator Racha Gharbieh, who read for us letters from artists responding to censorship in Germany.Then we took the costume off.
“IF SUICIDE BOMBERS LOOK LIKE YOU, I WOULD LOVE TO DIE”
Day 2 : Performance, reading together, memorizing, and reading aloud alone.
On day two we finished the costume and wore it. Then we began to read poems and texts by Palestinian poets and writers, alongside Facebook statements and first-person accounts from people in Gaza. Each participant chose a poem or text and attempted to memorize it. With a microphone in hand they tried to deliver the piece without looking at the page; when a word slipped, the group supplied it. Then we took the costume off.
“IF SUICIDE BOMBERS LOOK LIKE YOU, I WOULD LOVE TO DIE”
Day 3 : Performance, resistance statements, “the narrative”
On the third day we put the costume on, warmed up, and moved through the space to the music of Sha’aban Abdel Rahim’s Ana Bakrah Israel. We watched a range of Palestinian and Lebanese films that depict the massacres carried out by the IDF against Palestinian and Lebanese communities, alongside interviews with freedom fighters and writers. We read statements by university professors condemning the genocide and returned to the question of language; how it is inseparable from the struggle, and how bodies are inseparable from language. We discussed fighters’ tactics and, finally, each participant described in detail an imagined performance inspired by the day. Then we took the costume off.
“IF SUICIDE BOMBERS LOOK LIKE YOU, I WOULD LOVE TO DIE”
Day 4: Performance, protest, resistance, bang bang.
On our last day we put the costume on, warmed up to La Bombe by Al Rahel Al Kabir, and spent some time reflecting on the days before. Then I handed each participant three boxes of bang bang.
We began with a poem by Musaab Abu Toha. One person read, and when another wanted to take over the microphone, they had to throw a bang onto the table. Disrupt and take over. After the reading we moved into discussion — violence, protest, strategies, resistance — following the same rule: to take the mic, you had to throw a bang.
We closed the day by taking off the costume. Some took it home. Some destroyed it.
