These Tablets are cast in wax over Palestinian embroidered fabric, forming a border that frames a central Arabic poem, and are laser-engraved in Diwan Kufi script.

The poem — written by my grandfather — recounts the events of the 1967 war, Naksa, from his own perspective. A Palestinian poet and political prisoner at the time, he wrote about the displacement of his wife (my grandmother) and their eight children (my mother and her siblings) from their hometown of Jayyous in the West Bank to Jordan. The poem is titled Al-Raḥīl ʿan Jayyous (The Leaving from Jayyous).

Each piece evokes the sensibility of an unearthed tablet or fragment, emphasizing the notion of a “present past,” in which these histories continue to reverberate. The wax medium underscores a tension between permanence and fragility, suggesting a material and emotional malleability—an openness to re-telling, re-making, and imagining possible forms of resolve.

-Wax, Poplar wood - 2023