Wild Plants of Palestine
Video-essay, 10'00'', 2018
Featuring in TPFF 2019 & Reel Palestine 2020
Photoessay, 2018, ed. of 25, riso print, 20 X 14.5 cm
Available at WALTER books & BOOKS@RET, KIOSK Rotterdam
Wild Plants of Palestine follows journeys of observational tours solicited by the Palestinian Museum and conducted by two professors from Birzeit University to collect photos and information about Palestinian flora. The title is adopted from the Matson Collection images (circa 1900 to 1920) of wild flowers in Palestine, in the Library of Congress. Despite the tendency to trace the wild plants, the text in general aims at questioning the territorial extension of what is meant by the term “Palestinian”, while standing on insignificant topographical features of the (postcolonial) landscape in the West Bank. Furthermore, the video addresses photography as a practice and tool of distributing and restricting information at once.