The series Saber/Zaun is made from printed paper coated with salt, depicting prickly pear cacti in varying degrees of abstraction.

The work reflects on the drawing of boundaries, both physical and symbolic.

Salt is a central material in the series. It is associated with preservation, but also with impermanence: over time, it shifts, crystallises and crumbles. The works are deliberately fragile and respond to the passage of time.

The title Sabres/Zaun points to the cactus’s complex and contested cultural meanings. Although native-born Israelis are likened to the prickly pear, the plant itself is not native to the region. It was introduced to the region from Mexico, probably as early as the sixteenth century.

Within the Israeli narrative, the Sabres embody the myth of the non-diasporic Hebrew-Israeli: prickly and brash on the outside, yet kind-hearted and sweet within. In the Palestinian narrative, prickly pear hedges mark the remains of villages whose inhabitants were expelled in 1948. The cacti were planted to enclose fields and plots of land, while their fruit was eaten by both people and animals.

The Sabres thus embodies a tension between rootedness and displacement, defence and separation. A single symbol that holds opposing narratives together, and becomes a paradoxical point at which the two converge.