Birzeit, Geology of Disaster

Photography, 2017

Part of a larger body of work Quarries of Wandering Form two photographs titled Birzeit, Geology of Disaster, olive trees are uprooted from quarrying near the small town of Birzeit (historically known for its olive oil production, as "Birzeit" means ‘well of oil’). Quarried stone slabs are assembled along the dirt track like headstones, marking the Olive Tree’s absence.

Quarries of Wandering Form (2014-17) is a body of work that incorporates photography and moving image to unearth the environmental, economic, geological, and political aspects of the quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank (OPT). The work emerged from five years of research in the region, where a highly contested set of relations between individuals (workers and owners), institutional forces (military), and broader constructs (nationalist identities and sovereign states) unfolded - relations overdetermined by the century-old settler colonisation of land.

The work consists of the film White Oil and a series of photographs, In Search Of Kafka, Widow,Birzeit, Geology of Disaster and Ashdod. These works explore the quarries as industrial spaces where labour, excavation, and expropriation of raw materials take place. And as an archive and cipher for the day-to-day lives of Palestinian workers, revealing narratives surrounding colonialism, land expropriation, and mobility.

RELATED WORKS AND RESOURCES
Quarries of Wandering Form
White Oil
In Search Of Kafka
Ashdod
Widow
World of Matter r

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