Foragers, by Jumana Manna: screening and conversation

The museum presents Foragers, a film by Palestinian artist Jumana Manna (1987) as an activity of the public program of Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies. After the screening, Jumana Manna will participate online in a conversation with Spanish writer and curator Sonia Fernández Pan and Indian author and editor Skye Arundhati Thomas, who also play active roles in this edition of the Organismo study program.  

Foragers (2022, 65 mins) depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme) and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further dispossess them from their land while the occupation's state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect.   

Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.  

The film is shown in its original version with Spanish subtitles, while the conversation is conducted in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish.