Foragers (2022) moves between documentary and fiction to chronicle confrontations between Palestinian pickers of the wild growing herbs 'akkoub and za'atar and the Israeli Nature Protection Authority, which has deemed the plants endangered. The foragers' defiance and the punishments they face, from large fines and potential jail time, at times takes on an absurdist and comical tone that raises key questions around the politics of extinction - namely who determines what gets to live on and how.
Jumana Manna, a CalArts MA Aesthetics and Politics alumna, 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.