Prohibited versus Protected Species in the Bio/Necropolitics of Palestine-Israel
2024
Pen, ink, and watercolor on paper mounted on acid free foamboard
21 drawing segments mounted on boards. 34 x 49 inches
Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial, Group exhibition, Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY
Informed by interdisciplinary scholars, these drawings are an example of my research-based practice. Seven species across Palestine-Israel are either protected or prohibited to achieve further land control or advance historical narratives, while suppressing Palestinian legacies and connections to their ancestral lands. I have worked as a public horticulturist in NYC for ten years, implementing landscape management logics towards various plants and animals. With drawing patterns borrowed from jewelry and embroidery traditions of my ethnic group as a Yemeni-Israeli Jew, express an affinity and solidarity with Palestinians and other Arab people. Evergreen pine and cypress forests planted by the Israeli state hide traces of destroyed villages, while developing a greener landscape of wild forests, in opposition to cultivated, domesticated, non-wild olive trees which are a prominent Palestinian symbol. Black Goats are deemed harmful, as feeding on pine seedlings, and are prohibited for Palestinian shepherds. Carob trees recall a Palestinian man’s testimony in a documentary film about wanting just one seed pod from his Carob tree in his home, which he had tried to return to after being expelled in 1948. Za’atar (an oregano-like herb) and Akkoub (a Tumble Thistle) are traditional Palestinian food plants which have been categorized as native and protected, thus prohibiting their foraging.
His Circle
New York, NY | 2007
Stenciled spray paint on paper. 48 x 48 inches.
Site-specific graffiti for the area of Columbus Circle.
Commemorating
2012, 2013, 2016
One linocut and two silkscreen prints. Each print 9-1/2 x 7 inches
A series of prints celebrating the life of a deceased family member
City College Gargoyle
2004
Woodcut print. 18 x 10 inches