Literature

Mi’ar #1, 2023 Charcoal on paper, 70 × 50 cm

In Mi’ar #1, the Palestinian artist Samah Shihadi depicts a sabra cactus growing from a dry stone wall beside a great boulder, its broad pads spreading over the masonry. The drawing belongs to a group of works dedicated to Mi’ar, the western Galilee village where her family lived before it was destroyed in 1948. Sabra cacti were planted as living hedges around Palestinian villages, and at many depopulated sites they continue to grow long after the houses were demolished, marking the boundaries of communities no longer standing. Rendered in charcoal with hyperrealist precision, stone and plant appear equally enduring, monuments to a presence that persists in the land.