Scream of the Valley - Wadi Al-Nisnas
Creator: Rana Bishara | 1997
“‘Cactus is like a language for me and I seldom use it as subject for drawing but as the thing itself in three dimensions.’ In Haifa, she found a fragment of an old home - a wall still standing after Israeli destruction. Rana hung it with cactus leaves and between them she hung fragments of Arabic tiles often found at the site of destroyed homes. She called the work ‘Scream of the Valley - Wadi Al-Nisnas.’ She explained that Nisnas is the animal like a cat that is long in shape. And wadi means valley. The Nisnas is extinct in this valley now. Thus use of the phrase in this context is intended to describe how Arabs feel in Israel - deeply threatened. As time went by the cactus leaves sprouted and the meaning of that is not lost on either of us.”
