Weed Control
Exhibition on Palestinian flora and colonialism. 1 September - 1 December 2020, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, with the participation of 33 artists. Curator: Yazid Anani
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Weed Bouquet. 2020
33.4 x 21.8 cm
Collage on paper from cleaning product labels
The genre of still life painting developed in 16th-century Netherlands and expanded from there throughout Europe. It was the aesthetic reflection of a dialogue between an affluent society emerging out of colonial trade and its material possessions. In this tradition, the space of the vase was a centripetal one, where flowers fly to it from many exotic lands and various seasons of the year, to be concentrated into one sovereign space. When the British Mandate classified plants in Palestine, it followed a colonial extractivist approach to botany—separating cash crops from weeds—that escorted the rise of still life as a genre of high art. Weed Bouquet features Convolvulus arvensis or field bindweed, amidst other common weeds from the Levant. In this still life, plants classified as unwanted, and fated to annihilation, are elevated into objects of important aesthetic and cultural value. This work continues Manna’s series, The Cleaning Collages, which render imaginary landscapes from cleaning product logos meticulously cut and pasted onto paper. The collages play on classical Western painting genres by replacing the ideal with an imitation fantasy copy—copies composed from chemical cleaning products, which simulate through smell the very same natural environments they contribute in eroding.
© Photo, text: Artist & A. M. Qattan Foundation
Exhibition on Palestinian flora and colonialism. 1 September - 1 December 2020, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, with the participation of 33 artists. Curator: Yazid Anani