Little is known about why Palestinian camps are put where they are - or about the trajectories of their communities.

Reflecting on ideas of refuge and the sea that connects them to Palestine, Dictaphone Group worked with four residents of the Rashidieh Refugee Camp on the coast of Lebanon, just south of the city of Tyre. Filming their everyday routes from their homes to the sea, each participant would lead the film crew to a final scene in which they choose a spot on the seashore.

Along the way, the residents weave narratives about the history of the land, their arrival, the struggle to build, and everyday life in a camp situated away from the city, bordered by agricultural fields and the sea. The four videos are each projected on the walls of a gallery. The audience is invited to pick up a set of headphones in the middle of the room and listen to the soundtrack to one of the videos, hearing one story but seeing all four.

Dictaphone Group’s Camp Pause and Stories of Refuge are both presented as part of the INTERSECTIONS initiative. INTERSECTIONS is a program of the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, which seeks to build bridges between visiting artists and Houston’s Muslim and non-Muslim residents, with a focus on University of Houston students. INTERSECTIONS is made possible in part by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters; Building Bridges: Campus Community Engagement Grants Program, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.