Jumana Manna

Biography

Jumana Manna is an acclaimed Palestinian artist and filmmaker known for sculpture and moving-image work that examines how power shapes bodies, landscapes, archives and the natural world. Born in the United States in 1987 and raised in Jerusalem, she trained at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo and CalArts, developing a practice that moves fluidly between sculptural objects and essayistic film. Her sculptures, often cast in materials such as ceramic, plaster and metal and referencing agricultural and storage forms like the khabya granary jars, explore preservation, decay, control and survival. These concerns extend into her films, which blend documentary and fiction to probe colonial science, food systems and cultural heritage. Manna's films have earned wide critical recognition. "Wild Relatives" (2018) traced the journey of seeds between a Svalbard seed vault and Lebanon, while "Foragers" (2022) examined Israeli restrictions on Palestinians gathering wild plants such as za'atar and akoub, winning awards and screening at major festivals and institutions. Her work has been shown at leading venues worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate, the Venice Biennale and numerous international biennials, and she has received honors such as the Ars Viva Prize. Dividing her time between Berlin and Jerusalem, Manna is among the most prominent younger Palestinian artists internationally, bringing ecological and archival questions into the conversation about Palestinian dispossession and resilience.

Why This Person Matters

Manna is a leading younger Palestinian artist whose sculpture and award-winning films connect ecology, archives and colonial control to Palestinian survival, shown at MoMA, Tate and the Venice Biennale.

Historical Context

Born in Princeton in 1987 and raised in Jerusalem, Jumana Manna belongs to a younger generation of Palestinians shaped by the failures of Oslo and life under entrenched occupation, who reframe dispossession through ecology, science and the archive rather than slogans. Her training in Oslo and at CalArts placed her within a globalized art world even as her subject matter stayed rooted in the contested landscapes of Palestine. Works like Foragers (2022) directly confront the present-day machinery of control, examining Israeli laws that criminalize Palestinians gathering wild za'atar and akoub on their own land. In tracing seeds, granary jars and foraged plants, she situates Palestinian survival within longer histories of colonial science and the bureaucratic regulation of nature.

Historical Context

1. 1987 — Born in Princeton, United States

Selected Works

• A Magical Substance Flows Into Me — A 2015 video art work following the path of Robert Lachmann, a German Jewish ethnomusicologist who recorded the music of 'Oriental' minorities in 1930s Jerusalem — a meditation on archive, voice, and belonging.

Legacy & Influence

Manna has become one of the most internationally visible younger Palestinian artists, exhibiting at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate and the Venice Biennale and earning honors such as the Ars Viva Prize. Her award-winning films Wild Relatives and Foragers have entered film and art curricula and travel the global festival circuit, demonstrating that Palestinian art can lead conversations about food sovereignty, biodiversity and ecological justice. By fusing essayistic cinema with sculpture in materials like ceramic and plaster, she has expanded the formal vocabulary available to a new generation working between Berlin and Jerusalem. Her insistence on the political stakes of seeds, soil and wild plants reframes Palestinian resilience as part of a worldwide reckoning with extraction and control.

Topics & Themes

• Post-1967
• Diaspora

References & Sources

1. Jumana Manna - The Museum of Modern Art — https://www.moma.org/artists/64999
2. Jumana Manna's Foragers - Frieze — https://www.frieze.com/article/jumana-manna-foragers