Performative Screenings #77
FORAGERS / FORAGING
Friday December 9, 2022
7pm
screening of the film FORAGERS by Jumana Manna, 2022 (64 min.)
yarrow beer, sage tea, za'atar and lecture performance by Salma Shaka
Jumana Manna's film FORAGERS depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary, and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like plant ’akkoub and herbs za’atar (thyme) and sage (merameyeh), which have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.
Salma Shaka’s lecture performance invites visitors to engage with the space and their senses by smelling, touching, and tasting herbs she has collected from Palestine and around Vienna, where a communal intersection between different plant varieties comes together to create a landscape of multiple geographies. Homebrewed yarrow ale is served alongside za’atar and sage tea, introducing their importance in constructing a Palestinian, indigenous, cross-species identity. “The landscape I have chosen to create in an effort to draw closer to myself these plants, this city, and other people, resonates with my artistic practice in seeking to encourage others to reflect on the places they come from. Ceremonial traditions exist locally and are oftentimes right under our feet if we’re willing to look closer and discover what the lands we are in have to offer. My recent experiments with beer-brewing with yarrow explore this layer of local social practices. Exploring the topic of indigeneity, to me, has always been within the realm of exploring oneself, not some exoticized other we tend to look for answers from to care for a crumbling world. This is an invitation to collectively come together to have conversations on imperialism, extractivism, and all the causes that have led up to a warming world. Some za’atar, a warm cup of tea, or a cold beer, often aids in digesting such heavy discussions.”
Jumana Manna is a Palestinian artist working primarily with film and sculpture. Her work explores how power is articulated through relationships, often focusing on the body and materiality in relation to narratives of state-building, and histories of place.
Salma Shaka is a Palestinian artist, writer, and activist. Her works tackle the topics of environmental justice, land reclamation, and ways of imagining emancipated political futures of indigenous agencies.
©Jumana Manna, Foragers, 2022 + Salma Shaka, Poppy flowers, construction waste, Nablus, Palestine, 2022
