In 2024, we continued hosting reading sessions in the SAE Greenhouse while also extending a few sessions to other inspiring spaces, such as Le18 in Marrakech, Zari3a in Rabat, and Hyperwerk in Basel. These sessions centered on decolonial feminist perspectives in agroecology, with a particular focus on Palestinian agricultural and food systems.
Throughout the year, Kenza Benabderrazik and Tara Lasrado began curating a growing collection of books and resources on the intersection of art x agroecology. This collection, made visible and accessible in the Greenhouse, featured books primarily from our personal libraries. It was a deliberate effort to amplify often unheard and unseen voices and practices within environmental discourse.
This year, the reading sessions became an occasion to collaborate with other spaces and individuals, including Les Complices*, Heiba Lamara, Sarah Mounia, and Balkis Guetta. These gatherings were more than discussions—they were a shared practice of questioning and reflecting, nurturing the community we hold dear. They served as a space for connection, fostering dialogue and curiosity around the transformative possibilities of agroecology and its intersections.
Last year, our sessions focused on Palestinian agricultural and food systems, with curated texts made available online. Two notable events took place with the collaboration of Lescomplices*:
1. Film Screening and Reading Session: The Untold Revolution: Food Sovereignty in Palestine
On April 8th, we screened The Untold Revolution by Ameen Nayfeh, a 2021 documentary exploring the Palestinian agricultural movement’s journey toward food sovereignty. The film highlighted efforts to break dependency on Israeli occupiers and global monopolistic companies, advocating for systems rooted in local resources, cooperation, and culturally appropriate practices.
2. Film Screening, Talk, and Reading Session: Who’s Afraid of Ideology?
On May 6th, we collaborated with Marwa Arsanios and Les Complices* to present Who’s Afraid of Ideology? (Parts I, II, and IV). The films examined themes of ownership, extraction, feminism, and grassroots resistance, particularly through the lens of the Kurdish autonomous women’s movement and land struggles. The event included a talk with Marwa Arsanios, providing insights into her interdisciplinary work on gender, spatial practices, and resistances.
Both events were enriched by reading materials from the arvae x SAE Greenhouse library, emphasizing decolonial feminist perspectives on agroecology.
on monday 21.10 Heiba Lamara initiated our reading session with @sae_greenhouselab making connections between growing and publishing. we collectively read an excerpt from «Adjusted Margin» by Kate Eichhorn on xerography, art and activism; and «Time Stood Still in these Gardens» a zine by Synchar Pde @tungtapandjadoh while collaging with materials from Heiba’s «Sow Together» archive as well as images of seeds, plants and Palestine from the ETH media archive.
on monday 18.11 we invited filmmakers Balkis Guetta Benouachkou and Sarah Mounia Kachiri to initiate our reading session, as a sharing on their research project ALPLAS*, designed to be told in the form of a documentary story.
Sarah and Balkis took us through a compilation of selected texts, film clips and voice notes from their archive on mountain habitats of the sacred, identifying alterity, to the nationalisation of nature and naturalisation of the nation, the use(s) of tourism, to learning from ancestral techniques, reclaiming narratives and storytelling. the sharing revealed their practice of making the unseen/unheard seen/heard, resonating deeply with our ongoing reading practice.
