Film

The film Foragers (2022) by Jumana Manna deals with ongoing conflicts related to foraging and nature conservation in Palestine and Israel. The artichoke-like plant akkoub and the herb za’atar (thyme) have a natural place in Palestinian cuisine, and there are long traditions of gathering these plants in the wild. Since 1977 and 2005, Israeli conservation laws have prohibited the picking of these wild plants, leading to fines and trials for hundreds of Palestinians who have broken the laws either out of defiance or sheer necessity. For Palestinians, these laws become a way of restricting access to their own land, under the pretext of environmental protection.

The film is based on footage from the Golan Heights, Galilee, and Jerusalem. Jumana Manna uses fiction, documentary, and archival material to depict the impact of Israeli conservation laws on local customs. At a meditative pace, we follow the plants from the wilderness to the kitchen, from the nature patrol’s pursuit of foragers to their defense in court. The film highlights the joy, knowledge, and identity tied to these plants, and how foraging becomes an act of resistance for Palestinians. Jumana Manna uses humor as a device to expose the skewed power relations that characterize the different situations. By examining natural legislation as an instrument of power, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction. Without questioning the need for conservation, it asks: who decides what becomes extinct and what is allowed to live on?

Jumana Manna was born in 1987 in the United States to Palestinian parents and grew up in Jerusalem. She studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and lived in Norway from 2006 to 2010. Manna has exhibited extensively in Norway and internationally and participated in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017.

The film Foragers was aquired for the museum collection in 2024 and is on view until 15 March 2026.