Balfour Reparations 2025-2045

What if the UK publicly apologised for the Balfour Declaration—and promised reparations to the Palestinian people?

Inspired by archival materials Farah Saleh’s unique and powerful performance lecture investigates ways of confronting the United Kingdom’s colonial legacy in Palestine. The role of Arthur James Balfour the country’s Prime Minister (1902-1905) Foreign Secretary (1916-1919) Chancellor and Rector of many UK prominent universities (1886-1930) is examined in the denial of Palestinian political rights in their homeland. Saleh takes us through history fiction and fantasy situated in the future in 2045. The audience interact as members of the reparations’ evaluation committee reflecting on the imagined apology letter that the United Kingdom will have issued in 2025 to the Palestinian people. 

Helen Trew Director Art27 Scotland said:

“At the heart of the performance is a confrontation with the UK’s historical responsibility in displacing Palestinians and undermining their right to self-determination. Drawing on frameworks such as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Art27 considers how the ongoing occupation continues to deny Palestinians’ ability to freely pursue their cultural development and indigenous identity. Audience members are not passive observers—they become part of the narrative as a reparations evaluation committee asked to assess the impact of the imagined UK actions. This framing turns the performance into a space for collective reflection and engagement with our own history. As part of Art27 Scotland’s CULTURE = LIFE programme for Refugee Week 2025 this performance embodies the programme’s ethos: that cultural rights are human rights and that art can be a vital force for truth-telling and transformative justice.”

Artist Biography 

Farah Saleh is a Palestinian dancer choreographer and scholar based in Scotland. She took part in projects with Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine) the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium) Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon) Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK). Since 2010 Saleh has also been teaching dance coordinating and curating artistic projects including the Sareyyet Ramallah Summer Dance School which she co-founded. In 2014 she won the third prize of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) organized by A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine for her installation A Fidayee Son in Moscow and in 2016 she won the dance prize of Palest’In and Out Festival in Paris for the duet La Même. She was an Associate Artist at Dance Base 2017-2021 and in 2023 she earned her practice-based PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. In 2024 Saleh started a lectureship in Global Majority Performance at the Theatre Studies department at Glasgow University. 

You may also like the following events from Art27 Scotland:

• Next month, 20th June, 07:30 pm, The Horse of Jenin - Palestinian Comedy Club in Edinburgh
• Next month, 21st June, 07:30 pm, Reem Kelani & Trio in Edinburgh