Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, Foragers focuses on the traditional Palestinian practices of foraging for the artichoke-like ‘akkoub and za’atar (thyme). Deeply embedded in traditional culture, these practices have been recently criminalised by the Israeli government under the guise of conservation efforts, resulting in heavy fines, trials, and prison sentences for Arabs who are caught gathering these plants. 

Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between Palestinian foragers and the Israeli nature patrol to the forager’s defence court rooms, Foragers questions the politics of conversation in relation to traditional land practices, raising the importance of wild food sources as sustenance and as cultural symbol for people whose political autonomy, rights, and land have been under attack for nearly a century. 

Jumana herself has said: ‘Food manifests as a container for family and community histories tied to land… Collecting wild-growing food was the backbone of human survival for millennia, and continued to be a daily practice alongside agriculture for just as long. In recent years, foraging has seen a resurgence of popularity across much of the world: for some it’s a leisurely weekend activity, a way of being close to nature, and for others, a means of survival – a safety net in precarious times.’

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Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.