How do you become a vessel for the exiled? In an effort to take displaced bodies (back) to a land from which they have been banned, multimedia Palestinian artist Emily Jacir travelled to West Bank and Gaza between 2001 and 2003. Her American passport allowed her access to cities like Jerusalem, Haifa, Nazareth, Jericho, Ramallah, Bayt Lahia, the villages of Dayr Rafat and Dhinebeh, among other places. Jacir made these treks to fulfil the wishes of generations of Palestinians, who remain cast out of their homeland. However, in 2004, even with her American passport, Jacir could no longer enter Gaza or certain Palestinian towns. Experimenter Kolkata is hosting the artist’s monumental body of work, Where We Come From (2001-03), documenting these trips. It has been hailed by Frieze magazine as one of the most important pieces of contemporary art in the 21st century. Currently on view at Experimenter, Hindustan Road, this show marks Jacir’s solo debut in India.
Where We Come From is a collection of photographs that lives in the shadow of constant violence. It gathers not quite the wounds of war but the aftermath of displacement. Haifa’s beachfront, a condolence book, a closeup of sayadiyeh (a Mediterranean fish and rice dish), a family in a field gathering harvest, a mother’s grave in Jerusalem—these are excerpts of civilian lives Jacir saturates with the grief of settler colonisation borne by several generations of Palestinians. Jacir acts as a proxy—a corporeal extension—for them in fulfilling simple albeit meaningful requests: “Pick oranges from the family grove”; “bring me a photo of my family, especially my brother’s kids”; “water a tree in my village”; “plant some pomegranate tree seeds”; “light a candle on the grave of Christ”; “deliver a letter to the occupiers”. Those whom Jacir serves as a kind of corporeal extension are truly diasporic. These are Palestinians who live in New York, Cairo, Riyadh, California, Amman, London, everywhere but their mother(’s)land.
These requests are part of the accompanying text to photos that Jacir takes to commemorate the journey that fulfils her interlocutors’ wishes. To these she appends notes that highlight how immobile her requesters are under the Israeli regime. There is George, born in Nablus, who cannot visit Nazareth, or Mahmoud, born in a refugee camp in Hebron, who is not allowed into Jerusalem. There is Iyad, who holds a West Bank ID and a Palestinian passport, who is forbidden entry into the “1948 areas” referring, of course, to the Nakba. Then, there are Jacir’s own parents who “cannot leave the boundaries of Bethlehem”.
Jacir’s photographs are not just documents of ordinary wishes that are delegated to her. Once in a while, Jacir herself steps in front of the camera, the agent becoming the subject. “The body in my work is a personal and collective biography,” she says. “Something I am a part of, not a proxy for. It makes visible kinship networks across distances. It shows transnational ways of being and belonging.”
By keeping several Palestinians in designated regions and restricting their transit, Israel has also created what Jacir describes as “unnatural fragments, based on our identity cards such as East Jerusalemites, West Bankers, Gazans, Israelis, Jordanians, Americans, and so forth.” Where We Come From is a confrontation with the rigid and complex travel restrictions and bureaucratic systems of visas and inheritance laws that Israel has imposed on Palestinians.
Where We Come From is a project of a bygone era: the access that was once possible for Jacir with her American passport has since vanished. The work feels immediate given the continued atrocities against Palestinians that replicate a historic pattern of violence. At the same time, it feels archival, because the treks Jacir made more than 20 years ago can no longer be replicated. “It would be physically impossible to attempt to make this work today,” adds Jacir, “given the colonial regime’s dense matrix of checkpoints, Jewish-only roads, and more than 700km of concrete wall and electronic fences.” In 2001, Ghassan, one of Jacir’s interlocutors, entrusted upon her the task to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, both in Jerusalem. Now both sites are closed to devotees, standing empty, as Jacir says, “for the first time in history.”
The arrival of Jacir’s work in Kolkata comes at a slightly fractured moment as India fosters a strong alliance with Israel on the global stage. By recently banning the release of Kaouther Ben Hania’s 2025 feature, The Voice of Hind Rajab, a docudrama on the assassination of a five-year-old Palestinian child by the Israeli Defence Forces, India has tactfully avoided hurting Indo-Israeli relations. Whilst Bengali-Palestinian solidarity has a long history, Kolkata’s placement in a nation that recently positioned itself as Israel’s ally, makes it a precarious host for a work like Jacir’s. Still, she finds the city a welcoming space.
At Experimenter, Hindustan Road, Kolkata, till 6 June.
Rohit Chakraborty is a scholar and critic from Guwahati. They live in Kolkata.