Noor Al-Samarrai
Little Crow
17'07"
For some months I drew blue circles in chalk pastel in my notebook. For some months I drew few words. A sort of premonition of the test proof, the name I have given the event because abortion sounds incorrect, containing none of the body's warmth, brutal in its elision of the carrying and caring that precede release.
The blue circles prefigured pregnancy. An invitation for some roundness to happen.
The little crow appeared on the edges of this here, this hue; in the process of the event. Emerged from more general images of a bird.
Later, the blue chalk circles arrived at a mud-colored nest with a red dot inside.
The recording of this piece happened during a snowy April and involved a long silent walk through Brussels marshes, friendship, coffee and cooking, and looking at monk parakeets in the backyard through binoculars. Monk parakeets, once living in Germany, Austria, Denmark, and the Czech republic, are now locally extinct in those places.
Noor Al-Samarrai is an Iraqi poet and performer from California. Her work considers the confluence between place and memory.
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Upon request, a written transcript of the piece can be sent to your mailbox. Please drop us a line at hola@jaaambes.be. We can mail from Europe / the US.
Recorded in Jambes, April 2022.
