Blessings from Palestine explores the reclamation of Palestinian material culture through jewellery and amulets, objects that are containers of cultural knowledge, resilience, and identity. Through contemporary ceramic processes, my work engages with historical forms to breathe life into them, making them relevant and accessible in the present, showing how material culture offers a pathway of fostering cultural identity and resilience amid historical and ongoing erasure.

I experience these historical objects as containers and expressions of identity as they hold and communicate knowledge, beliefs and values of individuals and communities. In other words, they are the material expression of values. The significance of this resource today is that it could alleviate the sense of alienation by providing an opportunity to bridge the known to the unknown, the past to the present and the material to the immaterial. In that way, it could become a resource of resilience rather than a source of grief of the nostalgic past, destruction and loss. This resource is activated through my making, as it becomes physical and accessible. By transforming cultural objects into contemporary tangible forms, they are brought into the present and made available for engagement. Through direct interaction, whether by touch, recreation, or storytelling, these objects provide knowledge and strengthen cultural continuity.

When I work with clay, there’s an inherent thought that stays with me: ceramics hold a permanence that other materials don’t. Unlike metal, which can be melted down and repurposed, or wood, which can decay, ceramics persist. Once fired, they are fixed in their form, unyielding to time and transformation. This resilience reflects a hope I have for my culture.

I have worked with 3 main jewellery pieces, “habbiyat” a bracelet, “khamsiyat” a head ornament, and “sinsal samakeh” a fish necklace.