The project explores the potential of local earth materials in craft making and product design within our area, North of Jerusalem. It is driven by the urge to respond to urban transformations around us, particularly the open pits and aggregate waste resulting from the stone quarrying, crushing, and construction industries in the region. A close examination of the rubble and exposed strata resulting from these processes reveals a diverse array of materials with distinct properties: earth, clay, slurry, limestone, calcite and gravel.
Over the last century, the significance of these materials have shifted, taking on new meanings influenced by the ever-changing geopolitical and colonial interests and practices in the region. Materials ranging between limestone and clay, abundant in Palestine’s Central Mountains, have historically played integral roles in construction, pottery and crafts making. However, contemporary stone-cutting industries are mushrooming today to export heavily symbolic “Jerusalem stone” tiles for cladding, while pottery is on the brink of disappearance, transforming local clay from a livelihood source to a discarded construction by-product.
These shifts become evident when moving from the arid pastoral east of the watershed, characterized by Cretaceous limestone strata near the surface, to the lush agrarian west where a thick layer of varied soil components cover the terrain. Within a mere 10 km distance, limestone quarries cluster on the eastern side of the Central Mountains, while on the western side, unstable soils—once used for agriculture and pottery making—now host new construction projects catering to the growing Palestinian populations, confined between Israeli settlements and the separation wall.
In the present day, earth materials are categorized by a profit-driven mentality, polarizing them between ‘waste’ or ‘resource’, often disqualifying local narratives of symbiotic relationships with these materials. Beneath the surface of these narratives, layers of classification and exploitation converge. Our project delves into these layers, challenging prevailing taxonomies and interrogating the colonial and capitalist motives that drive extraction. We intend to critically unveil more-than-human narratives of earth materials, shedding light on the concealed dynamics of exploitation and the possibilities for activating local knowledge around them.
