Listening to Land

In a quiet valley on the outskirts of Bethlehem, a story unfolds not in words but in vibrations, whispers, and the resonance of place. The Sounds of Places project, hosted by the Wonder Cabinet, gathers artists to explore the intersections of sound, ecology, and identity in one of the last green spaces in Palestine. From within the Cremisan Valley, this initiative reveals the intricate ways sound can shape and preserve identity amidst resistance and loss.

A lush expanse of terraced vineyards, ancient olive groves, and rich biodiversity, the Cremisan Valley holds profound cultural and historical significance for Palestine. South of Jerusalem, the valley is home to the Salesian Monastery and Convent and is one of the last accessible green spaces in the West Bank. However, over the last three decades, the valley has been squeezed between two major settlements and severed by the segregation wall built by the Israeli occupation in the early 2000s. Families have been segregated, traditional farming practices have been disrupted, and the valley’s ecological balance has been threatened. Amidst this backdrop, efforts to preserve the valley’s heritage and ecosystem persist. In this context, Wonder Cabinet invited artists to engage with the valley, creating works that reclaim its stories and amplify its voice through sound and movement.

In the Cremisan Valley, artists Sofia Lambrou and Nisreen Tahhan, alongside Areej Ashhab, Sireen Alawi and Majdi Hadid, collaborated on the Cremisan Herbarium, a project that wove together sound, movement, photography, and ecology to capture the valley’s essence. Using cyanotype printing and field recordings, participants documented the landscape, creating passport-shaped herbariums that traced the plants and sounds of the valley.

Reflecting on the land’s agency, Lambrou shared, “Any representation of the landscape is constructed, but the land speaks for itself. Memory is ingrained in it, an inframince layer that is immaterial and bare.” This philosophy – that the land remembers no matter how much colonial erasure tries to overwrite history – guided their decision to bury photographic film beneath a tree in the valley, a symbolic act of letting the soil imprint its own story. “A tree caught my eye…it had a very strong presence as if it had seen a lot. We buried the film next to it, and it became an important piece,” Lambrou explained.

The Cremisan Herbarium became more than an archival project; it was a deeply emotional act of collective reclamation, allowing participants to reconnect with the land and its stories. “A lot of emotions came through during this project,” Tahhan shared. “It gave us a glimpse of how we can re-archive and re-explore our land in a different way, for us to listen and look into the details of what’s going on right now. It’s something we forget to do as Palestinians, there’s something happening all the time, and we don’t have time to sit and process, but it can bring a new light into community and how we can work together.”

Electronic musician and sound artist Jad Atoui brought a poetic vision to the Sounds of Places residency. His installation, Newton Gaza, was inspired by and a tribute to Hussam El Attar, a boy in Gaza who built wind turbines to generate electricity for his family amidst the blockade. Deeply moved by Hussam’s ingenuity, Atoui transformed this resilience into art by crafting a string instrument activated by wind using wind turbines and motors.

“I was basically using wind as a natural resource to animate the string instrument and vibrate the water in the pan. It has a poetic meaning, essentially animating life through wind and using technology as a middleman,” Atoui explained. “Even in a siege, the wind can break barriers and go through.”Growing up in Lebanon, he experienced first-hand how sound becomes a marker of identity and memory in times of conflict. “The sonic identity of Gaza is really different than any other city in the world, even the sonic identity of what we went through here in Lebanon,” he shared. “For me, when I was three years old I went through the first war in Lebanon. It was in 1996. The sound of bombings is still stuck in my mind. When I think about that, I remember Beirut and the old neighbourhood where I used to live…The combination of sounds you hear in your city really shape your identity in a way.”

A recurring theme in the Sounds of Places residency is the idea of inversion, shifting perspectives to challenge power dynamics. Lambrou and Tahhan’s cyanotype prints, presented in negative, symbolically reverse the oppression of the separation wall. “The wall feels like it’s pressing down on you,” Lambrou noted. “By inverting the dynamic, we wanted the land and the people to regain power, that’s why a lot of the pictures are in negative.”

Similarly, Atoui’s work reframes simple natural elements like wind and water as agents of vitality and hope. These inversions transform sound and imagery into tools of resilience, preserving collective memory while resisting erasure. Reflecting on the opportunity to participate in the project, Atoui highlighted its significance for artists in the region: “For me, it was really something important to be able to do or access a place which is located in Palestine. Usually, we dream of playing there or working on a project there… [this] was a big step.”

At its core, the Sounds of Places project shows how sound can transcend its medium to become a form of resistance. Reflecting on the role of sound and art, Lambrou emphasized the importance of collaboration and storytelling: “The word ‘collective’ is important; it takes a group to do it. Geopoetics, [the interconnectedness of geography, culture, and human experience through poetic and artistic expression], should expose things, and oral transmission is key, more fluid, not rigid, a language that flows.” Meanwhile, for Tahhan, sound and movement through the land become acts of reclamation: “The walks and workshops reminded us how to document the present, to archive what will soon be the past.”

By weaving sound, ecology, and place-making, all the artists invite us to engage with Palestine’s landscapes not just as backdrops but as active participants in the construction of identity. As Lambrou highlights, “Poetry has power”,  that, in this case, is capable of reclaiming  narratives and re-centering memory right back to land, sites where remembering finds permanence. Through the hum of a wind-activated string, the rustle of dried cactus leaves, or the echo of footsteps in a valley, Sounds of Places reminds us that the land, much like its people, is alive with stories waiting to be heard.