Arable Land, Harmful Plant. 2020
(Installation in a public space)
Folder cabinet: 47 cm x 103 cm
Mixed media

After more than 80 years since the policy of exterminating Palestinian plants set by British colonialism in Palestine, the artist returns to Palestine’s fertile and diverse soil to create a dynamic map that documents the resistance of the Rapistrum rugosum with its green leaves, green flower and bold presence along Palestinian borders; From Safed in the north to the Negev in the south.

The visual and the tangible interconnect in the work of artist Hanna Qubti; he insists that the audience should interact with his work visually and physically through reflecting on a plant that is both actually and conceptually condemned, as evidence of its self-criminalisation. It is a seed, then a plant that fights against attempts of extermination inside a frame on a white wall.

The artist takes on the role of researcher, visiting more than 45 cities and areas throughout historical Palestine to accompany the viewer on a journey to explore three types of watercress plants. This constructive work rebuilds one of the archiving mechanisms used by the colonisers. The artist invites the audience to interact with his work by excavating his live map, breaking the boundaries that the successive colonisers created on this land through rusty, dead iron shelves.