Zeitoun

Ancients of time, guardians of memory

In November 2024, I had the pleasure of exhibiting Zeitoun — Arabic for “olive”— at Dar Al-Anda, one of Jordan’s most beautiful art galleries. The evening was unforgettable. I was honoured by the presence of members of the Jordanian Royal family, foreign diplomats, dear friends, and many of Jordan’s passionate art lovers.

The exhibition featured surreal landscapes in vivid colour, presented as large Giclée prints on canvas, alongside moody, hand-crafted photogravure prints. 

The collection can be seen here: www.tariqdajani.com/zeitoun.

As part of the project, I also created a limited-edition, hand-stitched book featuring essays, poems, and the artworks themselves. See here: www.tariqdajani.com/books.

My Journey with the Olive Tree

In 2014, I was living in Andalusia, southern Spain. I heard about a grove of millennial olive trees, probably planted during the Muslim civilisation of al-Andalus. I visited the grove, walked and sat amongst the trees, and was affected, not intellectually but emotionally. I felt that I was in a place rich with ancient memories, knowledge and wisdom.

Years later, during a visit to Jordan, I was told of the Rumi or Byzanti olive trees of our region Bilad al-Sham, that spans Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon. They are the oldest living beings in our midst, some dating back thousands of years to Biblical times. The al-Badawi tree near Bethlehem is thought to be even older. It is difficult to comprehend what this means.

With their gnarled and twisted trunks, these ancient trees stand silently, steadfastly, sa’midoun, like ancient sentinels, keepers of memory, observers of time long gone. They are our elders, they hold our communities together and help us retain a link to our past. They provide not just bodily but spiritual nourishment, connecting us with something beyond our comprehension.

If these trees could speak, what might they say? What wisdom, forgotten knowledge might they share with us?

Trees are understood to be sentient beings, connected to and aware of their environment. They communicate with each other, above and below the ground. They are sensitive and responsive to sounds, colours, temperature. Certain music, positive emotions and energy can encourage healthier, stronger growth. It is also known that trees store information, thus, it can be said, they have a form of memory.

I ask myself, if we can affect trees with our emotions and energy, can they, in return, affect us, perhaps in ways that we may not understand? And if so, how might they affect us, would it be subconsciously with some form of ‘information’ or some form of ‘emotion’?

We know that being in nature can be a calming experience. But what actually happens to make it so? Every living and non-living thing emits a form of energy.  I believe it is the collective energy of a beautiful natural environment - the trees and plants, birds and bees, earth and stones - that balance our emotions in a positive way. 

Similarly, these ancient olives trees, rooted in their rugged and rocky hills, play a role in shaping our emotions too, connecting us to the land, to life and ultimately to the divine.

This project developed gradually, evolving intuitively along the way. My intention wasn’t simply to depict trees or landscapes, but rather to make images of what I felt. For me, the process of picture-making is a contemplative experience, that allows me to connect with my inner self, and at the same time to be open and present with the world.

When I set out to gather photographic material, there wasn’t a point when I knew exactly what I was doing, nor how the final images were going to look. It was an emotive, instinctive process, playing with ideas, blending and combining photographic material to create new, layered images, allowing the work to evolve without interference.

Creativity for me, is primarily an emotive experience. I instinctively know how something makes me feel before I engage with it intellectually. It is by engaging with my feelings, not mental articulation, that I begin to understand.

The making of the images came from within, from my consciousness, which is not separate from life itself. I was affected by something outside of my own space. This something, I believe, was the ancient olive trees.

For their guidance and inspiration, I thank them.