{"id":34608,"date":"2024-10-04T11:54:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T09:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=34608"},"modified":"2024-10-04T11:54:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T09:54:30","slug":"activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Activism in the Landscape: Environmental Arts &#038; Resistance in Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The olive tree connotes resilience, and it is also an economic reality to the family who harvests it. It is a locus of struggle for meaning-making, and it is also a site of violence under whose leaves Palestinians are harassed and killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, by Adam Broomberg and Rafael Gonzalez.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mackbooks.us\/products\/anchor-in-the-landscape-br-adam-broomberg-rafael-gonzalez?srsltid=AfmBOoqtSPLT8Jms_XWmVw2tgXT56EYYgvnFTMDDPMn3utxNMSblHiUJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MACK<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a02023<br \/>\nISBN 9781915743688<br \/>\n<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\nSettling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by Irus Braverman<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.upress.umn.edu\/9781517915261\/settling-nature\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Minnesota Press<\/a>, 2024<br \/>\nISBN 9781517915261<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Katie Logan<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s harvest season in Palestine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The collection of olives is at once tradition and economic necessity. In its most recent iteration, it has also been the site of increased violence, surveillance, and restriction. In 2023, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ochaopt.org\/content\/olive-harvest-2023-hindered-access-afflicts-palestinian-farmers-west-bank#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Food%20Security,setback%20of%20US%2410%20million.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Food Security Sector<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> determined that Israeli refusal to allow Palestinian families to access trees, coupled with threatened and actual violence from settler communities, cost Palestinians approximately $10 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The true cost has been much higher. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a 2024 photography compendium from Adam Broomberg and Rafael Gonzalez featuring 60 black and white images of olive trees around the region, Irus Braverman\u2019s afterword reflects on the 2023 harvest:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While international attention has been focused on Gaza, settlers \u2014 emboldened with new weapons and enhanced legitimacy \u2014 turned the 2023 olive harvest into a life-threatening event. On October 28, Bilal Mohammad Saleh was allegedly shot in the chest by a Jewish settler while picking olives on his family\u2019s land in the northern West Bank. His body was carried out to the road on the ladder that he had been using to reach his olives.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34676\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34676\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mackbooks.us\/products\/anchor-in-the-landscape-br-adam-broomberg-rafael-gonzalez?srsltid=AfmBOoqtSPLT8Jms_XWmVw2tgXT56EYYgvnFTMDDPMn3utxNMSblHiUJ\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34676\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Anchor-in-the-Landscape-cover.jpg\" alt=\"Anchor in the Landscape is published by Mack Books.\" width=\"400\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Anchor-in-the-Landscape-cover.jpg 500w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Anchor-in-the-Landscape-cover-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34676\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Anchor in the Landscape<\/em> is published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mackbooks.us\/products\/anchor-in-the-landscape-br-adam-broomberg-rafael-gonzalez?srsltid=AfmBOoqtSPLT8Jms_XWmVw2tgXT56EYYgvnFTMDDPMn3utxNMSblHiUJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mack Books<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Braverman\u2019s afterword makes devastatingly explicit a connection only alluded to in Broomberg and Gonzalez\u2019s stunning images: to pay sustained attention to Palestine\u2019s olive trees is necessarily to come into contact with the human labor, legacies, and authorities that sustain or threaten their existence. The growth of each tree \u2014 and its ability to weather increasingly disruptive terrain and land management practices \u2014 tells a story of the families who have cultivated, protected, and in some cases, mourned it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The afterword draws from Braverman\u2019s research in her 2023 monograph, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The book summarizes decades of fieldwork including interviews with high-ranking officials inside the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA), the agency charged with land management for Israel\u2019s extensive parks and reserves system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artists and researchers like Braverman, Broomberg, and Gonzalez represent a multifaceted form of environmental activism cultivated to counter Israeli occupation narratives that reframe land as exclusively \u201cIsraeli\u201d or \u201cJewish.\u201d The environmental activism advanced through these avenues is simultaneously academic and artistic. It also includes performance, education, and agricultural interventions, as demonstrated by projects like Mirna Bamieh\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/palestinehostingsociety.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Palestinian Hosting Society<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Vivien Sansour\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/viviensansour.com\/Palestine-Heirloom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Palestine Heirloom Seed Library<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. By paying attention to the politics of representation, the aesthetics of surveillance, and the ways that narrative structure undergirds colonial justification, these creators challenge both the narrative mythology of Zionism and its day-to-day realities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The need for diverse forms of Palestinian representation is a long-standing one; in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1986), Edward Said writes that \u201csince the main features of our present existence are dispossession, dispersion, and yet also a kind of power incommensurate with our stateless exile, I believe that essentially unconventional, hybrid, and fragmentary forms of expression should be used to represent us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape, Settling Nature, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the host of creative projects sponsored under the auspices of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/artistsandallies.art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artists + Allies x Hebron<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an artist collective to which both Broomberg and Gonzalez belong, suggest possible pathways for those unconventional forms of expression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one sense, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes use of a relatively familiar form. With a size and format suggesting a socially attentive coffee table book, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">should and will encourage less familiar audiences to pause and admire the continued presence of olive trees in Palestine. For those watching, living through, and\/or speaking out about continued atrocity in the region, though, the book is most valuable as it wrestles with notions of representation, surveillance, and violence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s sixty images center an olive tree or two, usually at close distance. Even photographs clearly taken in groves of trees hone in on a singular subject, with neighboring trees remaining phantom-like in the background. Similarly, homes are rarely foregrounded. Instead, an occasional urban landscape suggests itself in a dreamy background. These images unapologetically direct a viewer\u2019s attention \u2014 the clarity and texture of the foregrounded images practically draw us in to touch the perforations, indentations, and swirls of the trunks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the trees are <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/extension.unh.edu\/blog\/2022\/02\/inosculation-making-connections-woods\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">inosculated<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; their trunks kiss together and fuse. Others grow up out of cement or rubble. Some are so large and weathered that they can only be the product of hundreds \u2014 or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/palmuseum.org\/en\/support\/tree-sponsorship\/olive#:~:text=It%20has%20a%20very%20long,age%20at%20over%205%2C500%20years.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">even thousands<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 of years of growth, subtly reminding readers of the eons of history and labor erased when one of these ancestral trees is uprooted. Images document detritus, cinder block, and fences constructed around truncated trees. In one startling image, two black sheep peer around opposite sides of a single tree, the only creatures human or otherwise to clock the camera and its documenting efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accompanying each photograph is a largely blank page featuring small gray text: the precise coordinates of the documented tree\u2019s location. Each of these trees are real, the coordinates say. The tree exists in a particular place to which one could return. Should it be uprooted, its absence would be noted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a book that invites questions about process: how did the makers identify the trees they wanted to document? It\u2019s easy to imagine artistic eyes drawn to the almost feminine shape of a particularly willowy tree or to a diagonal growth that appears to defy physics. The artists acknowledge \u201call the families that allowed us to photograph on their groves\u201d while explaining that the project took more than eighteen months to complete. These details offer only limited answers; the systems through which permission was requested and granted remain opaque, just as the families tending these trees remain absent from the frame of every photograph.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The absence of humans from these images is not in and of itself cause for concern. High impact visual work often encourages viewers to use interpretive skills to engage a familiar issue through a new framing or object of focus. But as Braverman\u2019s reference to the murder of Bilal Mohammad Saleh makes clear, Israeli management of the olive harvest is designed to negate Palestinian lives. In this visual landscape, then, every choice about where to direct the viewer\u2019s eye is a political one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Broomberg and Gonzalez\u2019s images are deceptively simple. Part of the challenge for the viewer is noticing how these images require contextualizing work from us. Because of their efforts with Artists + Allies x Hebron (AAH) and the choice of Braverman as the afterword\u2019s author, the two photographers provide conscientious viewers the necessary signposts for entering a network of writing and arts-making focused on Palestinian nature, and olive trees in particular. Situating violence against the non-human alongside that inflicted on human beings requires attention to the fullness of that network.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Venturing into Settler Ecologies<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The documenting of an olive tree-laden landscape is an urgent need. In an exploration of cookbooks and food sovereignty for TMR, Mischa Geracoulis noted that, \u201cSince 1967, the Israeli government has uprooted or razed upwards of one million <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/11\/west-bank-israeli-settlers-palestinian-olive-trees-violence-occupation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Palestinian olive trees.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Since October 7, 2023, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20231113-israel-settlers-uproot-destroy-70-ancient-olive-trees-in-the-occupied-west-bank\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">settler vandalization<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Palestinian olive groves has escalated, most notably at harvest time to inflict maximal destruction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uprooted olive trees feature prominently in descriptions of Israel\u2019s forays into <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/visualizingpalestine.org\/visual\/green-colonialism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cgreen colonialism\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0practices, or what Mazin Qumsiyeh and Mohammed Abousarhan refer to as the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.scienceforthepeople.org\/vol23-1\/an-environmental-nakba-the-palestinian-environment-under-israeli-colonization\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Environmental Nakba<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d This is the phenomenon Braverman picks up and nuances in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settling Nature.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Braverman\u2019s research illustrates that environmental justification for land seizure and displacement isn\u2019t merely a cover for settler colonial activity. Instead, ecological and colonial aims are co-constitutive; they are rooted, to extend the natural metaphor, in similar binary logics of \u201cpure\u201d and \u201chybrid,\u201d \u201cnative\u201d and \u201cforeign,\u201d \u201cancient\u201d and \u201cnew.\u201d As such, they inform and reinforce one another\u2019s goals.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34677\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34677\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.upress.umn.edu\/9781517915261\/settling-nature\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34677\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Settling-Nature-Braverman-9781517915261.jpg\" alt=\"Settling Nature is published by the University of Minnesota.\" width=\"400\" height=\"590\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Settling-Nature-Braverman-9781517915261.jpg 500w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Settling-Nature-Braverman-9781517915261-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34677\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Settling Nature<\/em> is published by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upress.umn.edu\/9781517915261\/settling-nature\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Minnesota<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the Israeli context, both settler and ecological success depend on constructing a narrative that erases Palestinian presence \u2014 and especially Palestinian agriculture \u2014 in\u00a0 favor of a \u201cterrus nullius\u201d myth that allows current conservationists to shape physical landscapes in line with an imagined version of the past. Braverman gestures to Said: \u201cThe making of the physical landscape first require[s] a convincing narrative about the imaginary landscape. The greening of the Jerusalem landscape is indeed not strictly an ecological project, if there ever was one; it is also a visual and discursive reimagining of this landscape into <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nof kdumim<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013the image of an ancient and, more specifically, biblical landscape.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Braverman highlights the way both Palestinian people and non-human organisms are deemed too wild and \u201cunnatural\u201d for this imagined ancient landscape. Beings including hybrid goldfinches, the olive tree, and feral dogs are thus forced into violent if not outright eradicating management structures, what she calls \u201cthe biopolitical and necropolitical governance of other-than-human bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In most instances, Braverman juxtaposes these \u201cunruly\u201d species with the creatures INPA reintroduced or protected in pristinely constructed parks and reserves, as with INPA\u2019s battle against hybrid goldfinches transported and sold in Palestinian communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initially, the olive tree appears to be one in a line of simple substitutions. Braverman writes that the pine tree supplanted the olive in conservation narratives: \u201cThe pine forests accomplished a triple mission: preventing native takeover by physically occupying the space, erasing native memory by planting over demolished villages, and making the landscape fit the Zionist imaginary of the European forest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The olive tree proves a slippery symbol, however. In 2021, the Jewish Nation Fund designated the olive \u201cIsrael\u2019s Tree of the Year.\u201d INPA officials seeking to uproot the olive tree pointed not to its inherent harm to the landscape but rather to mismanagement on the part of Palestinians, critiquing the planting of new trees and the construction of irrigation systems. In this way, INPA increasingly claims not only the land under the olive trees but the meaning of the tree itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Part of Braverman\u2019s contribution to this research involves making herself and her own labor hyper-visible, as she highlights on multiple occasions the privileged access afforded her through her Jewish Israeli upbringing. Herself a product of this conservation regime, Braverman opens by centering this positionality:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In retrospect, I have been collecting materials for this book since my birth. On that occasion, the State of Israel planted a tree in my name in Jerusalem\u2019s Peace Forest and issued a certificate to prove it. This sort of tree planting was not a rare or unique occurrence by any means. It has been performed upon every birth \u2014 every <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jewish <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">birth, that is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Education outside Israel challenged Braverman to reframe her upbringing in Jerusalem and her mandatory military service as a \u201cnature education officer,\u201d an instructional military role Braverman describes as charged with erasing \u201cthe contemporary landscape of Jerusalem\u201d in favor of a \u201cunidirectional narrative that resurrects the Jewish biblical past through the reconstruction of its archaeological ruins.\u201d She now lives in what she calls \u201cself-imposed exile\u201d in the US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The project\u2019s fieldwork demonstrates the access her unique position affords her. Her wrestling with her own points of access shapes her critical analysis throughout. In some instances, she deliberates whether to accept an interview or tour in a settlement. Elsewhere, her intermediary position pulls her into a veterinary emergency, as she coordinates care for injured eagles between Palestinian and Jewish Israeli experts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Braverman\u2019s careful situating of her own positionality corresponds with one of monograph\u2019s main claims: without thorough analysis of the strategies Israel has used to erase Palestinians and their connections to the land, \u201cthe settler can emerge as the authentic native, in turn rendering the newer native inauthentic and even invisible.\u201d From such a vantage point, Braverman seems to argue, no creator can afford to remain behind the scenes. Visibility becomes a critical mode of resistance that transforms the discipline of environmental studies into an activist effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This orientation is a curious counterpoint to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where the presence behind the camera remains largely indeterminant. Of course, these projects are radically different from one another; Broomberg and Gonzalez are developing photographs to support their activism rather than conducting fieldwork. At the same time, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor\u2019s <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">contextual gaps feel like a rarity even among the other projects in the Artists + Allies x Hebron constellation that do situate visibility more fully.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Olives x Artists + Allies<\/h4>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settling Nature <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">share the understanding that challenges to Israeli occupation must emerge from research, observation, and artistic creation shaped on the land itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was released under the auspices of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/artistsandallies.art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artists + Allies x Hebron<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (AAH).\u00a0 With the Palestinian human rights activist <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/issaamro\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Issa Amro<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Broomberg is a co-founder and Gonzalez one of the collective\u2019s board members. AAH focuses on politics of surveillance and erasure in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2023\/11\/5\/like-a-prison-the-palestinians-in-hebron-living-under-israeli-lockdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hebron H2<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the region of the city under full Israeli military control. AAH\u2019s creative projects challenge frameworks of who looks and for what purpose, aiming to draw international eyes to the monitoring that governs residents\u2019 lives. The board itself is international; Broomberg is a South African based in Berlin, and Gonzalez in Panama, while others live in Hebron full-time. What makes AAH successful is its ability to support and broadcast projects coming at these topics through multiple avenues. Collectively, the impact is greater than any single project.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Echoing <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s stationary images, the project \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foam.org\/articles\/counter-surveillance-h2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Counter-Surveillance: H2<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d placed surveillance cameras within an olive grove overlooking Hebron, livestreaming and then archiving the footage. In the recording of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zEvys1vd2YA&amp;embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foam.org%2F&amp;source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Camera #2<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0\u00a0olive leaves sway gently in breezes. A bird flying overhead interrupts stillness in surprisingly jarring fashion. Cloud coverage, then evening, creeps in. Very little happens over the 12 hours of documentation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCounter-Surveillance: H2\u201d co-opts the specific technology wielded by Israeli authorities. The language of \u201ccounter-surveillance\u201d presents an opposing force \u2014 viewership and documentation is not a one-sided activity. The footage also calls into question what is gained by documenting a largely pastoral landscape \u2014 it highlights how agricultural, familial land has been recast as a site of conflict and seizure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another H2-focused AAH project develops even more specificity around the role of the camera. In this case, the Belgium-based photographer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/barbaradebeuckelaere.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barbara Debeuckelaere<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> worked closely with eight mothers in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Each woman received a camera and encouragement to document their day-to-day lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The product is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eriskayconnection.com\/om-mother\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018Om (Mother)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; images ran before the book\u2019s publication as part of AAH\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/unionmagazine.online\/stories\/omm-tel-rumeida-hebron\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Union Magazine<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In that article, the collective writes that \u201cMany women in the West Bank do not like to be pictured, for many reasons, so Debeuckelaere\u2019s method allowed them to control their own image, and the ways that their lives were depicted. It gave them agency over what and who to photograph and how they did it.\u201d The article also explains that each photo was constructed with an analogue camera, an effort to distinguish this image-making from the pristine violence of digital photos and video in H2.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The subject matter of these images varies, but common themes include profiles of small children at various degrees of focus, greenery from olive trees and grape vines, and even cameras themselves. In one shot, the photographer directs the camera upwards from what appears to be a patio space. The camera takes in grapevines twisting along balcony railings and power lines. A beam of light streaks across the right side of the image, and plants grow from plastic bins fitted over the balcony. At the top of the home, the photographer captures two surveillance cameras, almost anthropomorphized in the way their long necks crane and pivot to take in the nearby land.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The image prompts viewers at multiple levels of meaning-making. It illustrates the juxtaposition of natural elements and surveillance technologies, as well as the mundane qualities of those technologies. It also highlights the photographer\u2019s awareness of the surveillance \u2014 to be not just watched but to understand oneself as being watched. Like \u201cCounter-Surveillance: H2,\u201d there\u2019s a representational turning of tables \u2014 technologies that enhance the visibility of Palestinians for management purposes are not themselves allowed to fade into obscurity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One can feel each photographer\u2019s effort to document a moment in motion, or to collect multiple subjects in a single frame. The clarity and singular focus of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape\u2019s <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">olive trees is not a priority here. With a hyperfocus on the women behind the camera, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018Om <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">asks its viewers to step into their perspectives, to understand something about where their attention is drawn during daily life in H2 and how they make sense of competing registers \u2014 the child\u2019s small feet alongside fences and watch towers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In these images \u2014 made by the people of H2 of the people in H2 \u2014 love for and fragility of the human body under occupation is tangible. To grow things in these images, be they children or plants, is an act of nourishment and of courage.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b><br \/>\n<\/b>Olive Trees As <i>Sumud<\/i><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In both <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settling Nature, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">creators emphasize the olive tree as symbolic, not just an economic or ecological proposition:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through burning, uprooting, and denying Palestinians access to olive trees, the state of Israel and Israeli settlers have vested the tree with enormous power. . . Planting and cultivating olives becomes a project of Palestinian resistance. . . The olive trees become emblematic of the Palestinians\u2019 steadfast connection (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sumud) <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the land.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sumud <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 connoting steadfastness, resistance, rootedness. From the root <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">samada, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which can mean to repair, to turn toward, to defy, brave, or withstand, to hold one\u2019s ground or remain unaffected. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sumud <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">points to the olive tree\u2019s ability to survive with less irrigation, its root systems, its increasingly gnarled trunk. The tree withstands not only the violence of settler colonial regimes but also the weight of this symbolic responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Visual vocabularies are critical because, without care, the accrual of symbolism can become yet another act of erasure. In the 1984 memoir, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.betterworldbooks.com\/product\/detail\/samed-journal-of-a-west-bank-palestinian-9780915361021?srsltid=AfmBOoqRBk72clI80MZKHXlHO7xoc7uYbW5egVxMpVLm3ncW7tPPdyWm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Samed: Journal of a West Bank Palestinian<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the prolific writer and human rights lawyer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/in-search-of-fathers-raja-shehadehs-palestinian-memoir\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Raja Shehadeh<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> writes the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes, when I am walking in the hills, say Batn el-Hawa \u2014 unselfconsciously enjoying the touch of the hard land under my feet, the smell of thyme and the hills and trees around me \u2014 I find myself looking at an olive tree, and as I am looking at it, it transforms itself before my eyes into a symbol of the samidin, of our struggle, of our loss.\u00a0And at that very moment, I am robbed of the tree; instead, there is a hollow space into which anger and pain flow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this instance, Shehadeh describes the fury and grief of a double loss \u2014 of both the land and of the violence done to an object as it is made symbol. His work in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Samed <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and his writing since call us to consider the representational ethics of the natural world in Palestine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor in the Landscape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">isn\u2019t just a description of the role olive trees play in Palestinian ecology. The title can also function as a reminder, a command to continue rooting symbols in the real. The olive tree connotes resilience, and it is also an economic reality to the family who harvests it. It is a locus of struggle for meaning-making, and it is also a site of violence under whose leaves Palestinians are harassed and killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Documenting the uprooting of olive trees describes a symbolic attack <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an attack that destroys the right to live with shelter, safety, and dignity. Braverman develops an evidence base for the ways in which control of symbols and day-to-day life intersect under occupation, while Artists + Allies x Hebron envision new artistic strategies for linking the two, whether in visual form or through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/unionmagazine.online\/stories\/mirna-bamieh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">performance reliant on taste and touch<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. When Israeli settler colonialism relies on dominating both the imagined and physical landscapes, resistance must operate in both registers, too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The uprooting of olive trees by Israel is both symbolic and real, destroying Palestinians&#8217; right to live with shelter, safety, and dignity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":346,"featured_media":34678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,3864],"tags":[3868,3867,1288],"coauthors":[2352],"class_list":["post-34608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-art-photography","category-book-review","category-tmr-45-from-here-one-year-on","tag-art-collectives","tag-environmental-activism","tag-palestine","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.8 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Activism in the Landscape: Environmental Arts &amp; 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Resistance in Palestine","datePublished":"2024-10-04T09:54:30+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/"},"wordCount":3379,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Essa-Grayeb-Sun-Pictures-detail-from-slide-projection-2020.jpg","keywords":["art collectives","environmental activism","Palestine"],"articleSection":["Art","Art &amp; Photography","Book Reviews","TMR 45 \u2022 FROM HERE, ONE YEAR ON"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/","name":"Activism in the Landscape: Environmental Arts & Resistance in Palestine - The Markaz Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Essa-Grayeb-Sun-Pictures-detail-from-slide-projection-2020.jpg","datePublished":"2024-10-04T09:54:30+00:00","description":"The uprooting of olive trees by Israel is both symbolic and real, destroying Palestinians' right to live with shelter, safety, and dignity.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Essa-Grayeb-Sun-Pictures-detail-from-slide-projection-2020.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Essa-Grayeb-Sun-Pictures-detail-from-slide-projection-2020.jpg","width":1400,"height":1087,"caption":"Essa Grayeb, \"Sun Pictures\" (detail from slide projection), 2020. Essa Grayeb\u2019s \"Sun Pictures\" were commissioned for Weed Control, a group exhibition at the Qattan Foundation in Ramallah, Palestine, for which 33 artists created work based on 1940 illustrations of the most common weeds in Palestine. Grayeb was given what he calls a very \u201cboring looking\u201d plant, so decided to study the seeds and their growth process through photography and photograms (courtesy Union Magazine)."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/activism-in-the-landscape-environmental-arts-resistance-in-palestine\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Activism in the Landscape: Environmental Arts &#038; Resistance in Palestine"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#website","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/","name":"The Markaz Review","description":"Literature and Arts from the Center of the World","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#organization","name":"The Markaz Review","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg","width":473,"height":191,"caption":"The Markaz Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/f1776beaa0605cf5b4a2e75fa3f53ad8","name":"Katie Logan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3b83592e7b043c9c48c59dd1bd9b893133d2b85c20afd15b614d45693bde2d96?s=96&d=mm&r=ga9b388a17df38cf9a1fc25b9af0d94b1","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3b83592e7b043c9c48c59dd1bd9b893133d2b85c20afd15b614d45693bde2d96?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3b83592e7b043c9c48c59dd1bd9b893133d2b85c20afd15b614d45693bde2d96?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katie Logan"},"url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/author\/katie-logan\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Essa-Grayeb-Sun-Pictures-detail-from-slide-projection-2020.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34608"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34675,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34608\/revisions\/34675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34608"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=34608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}