Untitled (Night is blanket below which children of night hasten arrival of dawn)
Saad’s work begins from a study of the divergence in olive cultivars between Palestine and Lebanon following Zionist colonization and the introduction of European high-yield varieties. Once shared across the region, these original cultivars were renamed, replaced, or disappeared from the landscape of Palestine, while surviving in Lebanon under their ancestral names. Saad approaches this botanical and historical split through a surrealist composition that intertwines diagrams of the Iron Dome, mythological figures, and imagery from olive harvests. The resulting work moves between scientific, mythic, and political registers — a fragmented landscape in which the violence of colonization and the persistence of agrarian memory coexist. (Text by Lama El Khatib and Joud Al-Tamimi for Unsettled Earth group exhibition at Spore Initiative, documentation by Marvin Systermans.)
Ground itself torn up and cratered, “above ground,” “underground” unstable categories. Kitchen is tunnel is olive press is filial piety and love of a daughter. Night is blanket below which children of night hasten arrival of dawn. — Basyma Saad