It feels impossible to begin our conversation without acknowledging the conflicts devastating the Gaza Strip. Your work Passage (2002), featuring a soundtrack by Philip Glass, directly infers to that reality, placing at the centre of the screen a body wrapped in white cloth, eerily reminiscent of the corpses we see in war coverage. Facing that much suffering, have you ever felt like art failed you?

I’m really glad you brought up this example, because it was created in response to another conflict between Palestine and Israel at the time. During that same period I was also personally experiencing grief as my father passed away. Just yesterday I was talking to my husband about how much grief and trauma I feel these days about the loss of innocent people dying in Gaza from this evil and pointless war. You don’t need to know the people or belong to that culture to feel this pain, they become a part of your life. The fact that human beings give themselves the license to kill others is just devastating. A few days ago, when I heard five young, hard working journalists were killed in Gaza, I took it very personally. I didn’t know this young man, yet I felt it as if they were my sons, my brothers, my family. I was overcome with rage at such senseless violence. In the days that followed, I kept asking myself: “Who but God can give themselves the right to take someone’s life?” The scale of devastation we are witnessing now in Gaza and across the Middle East is unlike anything we have seen at least in my lifetime. It forces you to question yourself, where you stand in relation to the world, to violence, to conflict, to injustice, to atrocities. And as you said, part of you feels completely useless. How could you possibly say anything, or make any work of art, that sheds light on such overwhelming devastation? But then I think of Passage. That piece was developed very intuitively, as an emotional response to death, grief and mourning on both personal and collective levels. And I realize that is the kind of work I need to do, a piece that transcends time and ethnicity, because it speaks to something universal. Passage ultimately shows us a group of men carrying a corpse across various landscapes to deliver the body to the women, who as life-givers return it to the earth. There is something very fundamental, very primal in that act. It embodies the deepest grief of humankind: burying the dead. So, has art failed me? Like many artists, I keep asking myself, what’s the point? Yet I strongly believe that sometimes artists can create work that truly impacts people, that makes them pause, believe and reflect. I don’t know if I have ever succeeded in that, but I do know my work is an attempt to capture emotional truth, and I hope it touches people.

Remaining on Passage, how did the collaboration with composer Philip Glass unfold? 

When he first asked me to collaborate with him, I already had this piece in mind, but I really wasn’t sure whether he, as an American male composer, could feel the same emotional intensity I was trying to convey. I had always worked with women before, like Sussan Deyhim, from the Middle East, from Iran. So I had my doubts. But I have to say, when I listened to the score of Passage, it was the most melancholic, the most emotionally effective music. At first, when I told him about the concept, he composed it on piano. I remember going to his home, hearing him play, and then I shot the video and brought it back to him. Eventually, he recorded it with his orchestra, and I worked with his conductor to add the voices of women. My biggest fear was that since the story of Passage is so much about pain, the music itself might not carry that same depth of pain. But he exceeded my expectation and delivered the most moving music. It could not have been more fitting to this strange ritual of mourning.  The experience of working with Philip Glass also taught me something important: forget about the gender of the composer, forget about cultural background.  We are all human. He clearly related to the story and created music that touched the right nerve. I felt very lucky. And when he performed it live with the orchestra, it was incredibly powerful. It was an unexpected collaboration, but a very fulfilling one.