Quarries of Wandering Stone
Film, Photography and Archival Research, 2014-2017The 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.
Context
There are over 350 quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank. The saffron coloured limestone excavated is termed the 'white oil' of Palestine and is the only raw material available to support the Palestinian economy and provides a livelihood for over 20,000 workers. However, of the stone and sand excavated from the quarries 65% is expropriated by Israel for the construction of Israel, and to build the illegal settlements in the West Bank, with Israel also exporting the stone internationally and claiming it as their own product. Bound to the history and visual vernacular of occupation through bylaws in Jerusalem, the stone is used as a conveyor of emotional messages around notions of a sacred city and ‘homeland’ for the Jewish people. Today almost every hillside in the West Bank is scarred by the brutal incision of the quarries. The land is pillaged and defaced, its wound left open to reveal a 'geology of disaster'.
Price was awarded a practice-based PhD from the University of Creative Arts (2014) for her thesis White Oil, Excavations and the Disaapearance of the West Bank and long form film White Oil that focuses on the quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
White Oil
In Search Of Kafka
Birzeit, Geology of Disaster
Ashdod
Widow
World of Matter