Emily Jacir is fulfilling desires of Palestinians in exile

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.How do you become a vessel for the exiled? In an effort to take displaced bodies (back) to a land from which they have been banned, multimedia Palestinian artist Emily Jacir travelled to West Bank and Gaza between 2001 and 2003. Her American passport allowed her access to cities like Jerusalem, Haifa, Nazareth, Jericho, Ramallah, Bayt Lahia, the villages of Dayr Rafat and Dhinebeh, among other places.

Jacir made these treks to fulfil the wishes of generations of Palestinians, who remain cast out of their homeland. However, in 2004, even with her American passport, Jacir could no longer enter Gaza or certain Palestinian towns.

Experimenter Kolkata is hosting the artist’s monumental body of work, Where We Come From (2001-03), documenting these trips. It has been hailed by Frieze magazine as one of the most important pieces of contemporary art in the 21st century.

Currently on view at the gallery’s outpost on Hindustan Road, this show marks Jacir’s solo debut in India.Where We Come From is a collection of photographs that lives in the shadow of constant violence. It gathers not quite the wounds of war but the aftermath of displacement.

Haifa’s beachfront, a condolence book, a closeup of sayadiyeh (a Mediterranean fish and rice dish), a family in a field gathering harvest, a mother’s grave in Jerusalem—these are excerpts of civilian lives Jacir saturates with the grief of settler colonisation borne by several generations of Palestinians. Jacir acts as a proxy—a corporeal extension—for them in fulfilling simple albeit meaningful requests: “Pick oranges from the family grove”; “bring me a photo of my family, especially my brother’s kids”; “water a tree in my village”; “plant some pomegranate