Shuruq Harb's Films Navigate Palestinian History Beyond Politics

Palestinian artist Shuruq Harb uses film, sculpture, installation, and text to explore subjective and collective experiences in Palestine. Her 2018 film 'The White Elephant' stitches found footage from Israelis in the 1990s—Gulf War, raves, First Intifada—to tell the story of a Palestinian teenager grappling with cognitive dissonance under occupation. The film includes an interview with Israeli singer Dana International, who won Eurovision in 1998. Harb's 2021 film 'The Jump' examines a Palestinian man's suicide leap into the Mediterranean, with commentary from literary professor Wafa Darwish and psychologist Laila Atshan. Her work 'All the Names' (2011/2021) lists 207 street names introduced to Ramallah in 2010, including figures from Palestinian history, Jacques Chirac, Rachel Corrie, Ibn Sina, Socrates, Mozart, Djamila Bouhired, and Patrice Lumumba. 'A Book of Signatures' (2009) collected signatures of 250 Palestinians named Mohammed. Her 2026 film 'Al-Mashrou'', developed with architectural historian Nadi Abusaada and commissioned for 'Interrupted Futures' at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, documents the Arab Development Society (ADS), an agricultural initiative founded in the 1940s that supported orphaned refugees after the 1948 Nakba. The film references Zakaria Mohammed's 2022 book 'The Serpent Year' and highlights Israeli restrictions on water access. Harb seeks to find a way to discuss Palestinian history beyond politics.