Rana Beiruti

The publication 'Re-rooting: Self Determination and Autonomous Practices' not only serves as a reference of the exhibition Re-rooting , which took place at Darat al Funun in 2022, but also features essays written by various contributors on topics related to water politics, agro-ecology, and extractive building practices in Jordan and Palestine.

It serves as a historical reference of initiatives and projects undertaken by civil society, artists, chefs, architects, and designers, who put self determination and artistic expression at the core of their practice, and how they overcame obstacles in a post-pandemic.

Within the publication is a booklet insert which documents the reflections of students of the 2022 Darat al Funun Summer Academy titled ' Interrogating Earth '.

Structured around five parts; On Food as Resistance, On the Narrative of Empty Lands, On Archives and Earth Memory, On Extractive Building, and On Water, the book reads bilingually from right-to-left and left-to-right, outlining some of the most pressing issues that we face locally today.

"Acts such as mobilizing a community to plant wheat, experimenting with native ingredients in the kitchen, imagining multispecies ecosystems, transforming the fertility of the land, and digging through archives to contemplate alternative structures and systems; these are all material interventions that take place in real space and time outside the confines of the gallery’s representational space. They unfold in the field, in the forest, or in the kitchen and have a real impact on the communities and lands they serve. They are solid, sober, contextualized, symbolic, critical, and representative acts, and yet, can simultaneously be seen as studied, nuanced, and poetic. In that sense, they are acts that are embedded in contemporary artistic practice, and that draw from the methods of representation and expression characteristic of the art world."

- Rana Beiruti, 'Self Determination and Autonomous Practices: A Letter from the Curator'

"Subject to severe deterioration by human actions over thousands of years, local ecologies are transforming from native wildernesses to concrete jungles before our eyes. For the sake of urbanization, forests are often cleared, resulting in the fragmentation of natural habitats and the loss of wildlife. “Green” has become confined to plots of artificially manicured landscapes. As a result, city dwellers increasingly turn away from a deep reverence of nature and a coexistence with other species in the wild, and towards a culture that favors isolation and control, wherein the ‘untamed’ often evokes feelings of discomfort or fear."

- Deema Assaf / TAYYŪN Research Studio, 'We need to rewild our cities into multi-species ecosystems.'

"Working the land is the starting point for building a collective consciousness and understanding of the “commons” as a shared space for catalyzing change and taking action. Similarly, Re–rooting offered a shared space where audiences were invited to contemplate how wheat is intertwined with Jordan’s political and social history."

- Lama Khateib / Zikra for Popular Learning, 'Wheat is the thread of life that connects us to the land and to each other.'

"This is what art does best—it valorizes a tight selection of items that it successfully introduces right under your skin, whether you like it or not."

- Tirdad Zolghadr, 'Some Exhibitions Do Matter Sometimes'