Zeitoun is Arabic for “olive,” and this piece is based on one of the conversations I had with an asylum seeker in Providence who missed the olive trees that were abundant in her village in Syria. Here I’m thinking about the relationship between migrant bodies and resisting bodies, and their environment.

 

Found in the Mediterranean, the olive tree is one of the most significant plants for the culture of the Levant. For instance, in occupied Palestine, Israeli settlers continuously uproot and destroy thousands of olive trees on Palestinian lands, which makes their replanting a form of upholding, restating, or reclaiming of the land. This piece follows the notion of how a fruit can have significant sentimental and political associations in our existence and memory.

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The olive seed is covered with fabric found at an old textiles mill in Providence, along with the rope. By placing it barely hanging from the rope suspended in space, I think about transience and instability, reflecting on migratory bodies that are also in a state of transition, unstable, carrying with them memories about the homeland and ideas of belonging. I filled the seed with olive oil that slowly drips out onto the floor, playing with ideas of time, movement, scarcity, loss, and preciousness.