Book Launch – Fast Growing Stinking Escaped Waste-Loving Wall-Breaching Self-Cloning Other-Than-Natural No-Man’s Tree
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22.03.2025
Areej Ashhab & Ailo Ribas
Areej Ashhab and Ailo Ribas will introduce their collaborative book The fast-growing stinking escaped waste-loving wall-breaching self-cloning other-than-natural no-man’s tree. This collaboration stemmed from their journey through Palestine in August 2022 and their encounters with Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven, tree of hell). An “invasive” species introduced to Palestine during the 1960s and 1980s as part of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Forestry and Green Innovations, the tree was a starting point for their reflections on land and persistence amidst settler colonialism. Areej shares personal stories of the tree from her family’s homes in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, relating its growth patterns to the shifting ecological and political landscape of Palestine; and Ailo unpacks the notion of weediness associated with the tree as a means of addressing issues of belonging and resistance in occupied Palestine.