Borders and Boundaries (2017-)

Borders and Boundaries is a series of works in which artist Michelle Samour appeals to her ancestral past as a means of further engaging in the politico-geographic concepts of homeland, exile, and diaspora. Through cartographical repetition and reflections, Samour maps the historical (dis)possession of Palestine, ultimately decimating borders, boundaries and territorial constructs into geometric abstraction.

Ostensibly decorative, the work critically investigates the meaning of shape/land/form within the guise of traditional Palestinian craft. Samour’s pallet references the vibrant colors from Palestinian embroidery and weaving, while the materials emulate the depth and luster of Mother-of-Pearl carving prevalent in Bethlehem. Samour employs the tropes of optical illusion and opacity to present the viewer with a dizzying cartographic narrative of political geography.

Land of Milk and Honey (2017)

Drilling holes in wooden tablets and then burning them was the starting point of this piece and a way of speaking about the loss and destruction of the Palestinian's homeland. Collecting the scraps of wood that resulted and embedding them into plaster and beeswax (milk and honey), mirrors the cyclical nature and closed system of the Palestinian story where leaving is difficult and staying can be even more so.

Land of Milk and Honey: Stuck (2021)

In Land of Milk and Honey: Stuck, Samour cuts acrylic Mother of Pearl into the shapes of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and encroaching settlements. The cartographic shapes are then mirrored and embedded into sheets of over-beaten Abaca paper pulp that has been pigmented to elicit honey. The various territories are treated as biological specimens, creating a tension between stasis and potentiality, the search for the promised land; the land of ‘milk and honey’. This re-examination of land as a malleable, movable, biological and political construct forms a visual vocabulary suggestive of Habitat Fragmentation (the effects of geographic fragmentation on biologic diversity); flagella (the means of movement for microscopic organisms); plant metamorphosis; root structures; and cell division.

Withholding Water (2023)

In Withholding Water, water carriers based on amphoras from ancient Palestine and the Middle East are mounted on the wall to reference both a natural history illustration and a Historical/anthropological collection. Tree roots suggesting streams and tributaries run through the vessels alluding to their inability to hold water--metaphors for the physical and psychological uprooting of the Palestinians during the formation of Israel. Cast in pigmented paper pulp/plant matter, the choice of material ties the work to crop irrigation and the effects of water inaccessibility on Palestinian livelihoods. In the words of Adel Yassin, Director-General of Strategic Planning at the Palestinian Water Authority, “The problem is not a shortage of water but the occupation’s control of our water. Water is one of the basics of stability and liberation and any state without water is a state without sovereignty.”