Interrupted Futures by Shuruq Harb at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo
Published
Interrupted Futures is an installation by Ramallah-based artist Shuruq Harb. Centered on the film Al-Mashrou’, the work brings a site in Palestine into dialogue with the local context of Oslo. Earth-toned surfaces reference the palette of Palestine, while swings suspended from the ceiling destabilize the viewer’s physical and perceptual vantage point.
Developed by Shuruq Harb in collaboration with architectural historian Nadi Abusaada, the film Al-Mashrou’ weaves together archival material with footage filmed over the past two years at the Arab Development Society (ADS), a Palestinian agricultural initiative in the Jordan Valley.
Founded in the 1930s by Jerusalemite intellectual Musa Alami, the ADS was envisioned as an agricultural initiative rooted in principles of self-sufficiency. Following the 1948 Nakba and the establishment of Israel, its scope expanded to include housing, livelihoods, and education for Palestinian orphaned refugees.
Harb offers a meditative reflection on the inherent paradox of the ADS, and by extension the wider context of Palestine: how aspirations for self-determination have been shaped—and constrained—by imported European models of farming and architecture, as well as by deep power asymmetries and a reliance on foreign aid. Together, these forces have limited the imagination of what Palestinian autonomy looks like.
Al-Mashrou’, meaning “the project,” is the colloquial name for the ADS. While “project” is a familiar term for contemporary artworks, the term also denotes many kinds of proposals and initiatives still in formation, not yet complete. The title deliberately blurs the line between the agricultural initiative, the film itself, and Palestine as an ongoing, unfinished project.
The ADS estate has undergone multiple transformations over the decades, mirroring the region’s defining conflicts and the successive erosion of Palestinian autonomy. A decisive rupture occurred with the signing of the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s, which fragmented the site into zones of differing jurisdiction, obstructed free movement, and severely restricted access to one of its most vital resources: water.
In Palestine, “Oslo” does not primarily signify a city, but an agreement whose consequences are inscribed onto the land. Conceived across both Palestine and Norway, Interrupted Futures reflects on self-sufficiency, resilience, and the struggle for Palestinian autonomy in the post-Oslo era—connecting landscapes far from one another within a horizon of interrelated futures, continually reshaped, deferred, and interrupted.
Shuruq Harb
Shuruq Harb (b. 1980) is an artist, filmmaker and writer based in Ramallah. Her work has been shown internationally in various institutions and festivals. Her film The White Elephant received the award for best short film at the Cinema du Reel Festival in Paris (2018), and was shortlisted for the Hamburg International Short Film Festival (2019). She was the winner of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant of the Han Nefkens Foundation in 2019. Harb is also the producer of Al Mashrou’ (2024).
The film is commissioned by Kunstnernes hus and co-produced by BEK– Bergen Centre for Electronic Art through our Off-Centred residency programme, FilmLab-Palestine, and Etxe Betea’s A Shelter of One’s Own residency. Funding and support was provided by Wijhat: Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy), Kulturrådet and the Nordic Culture Fund. The exhibition is supported by the Fritt Ord Foundation and Sparebanksstiftelsen DNB.
Harb was invited to Off-Centred to work on the film project al-Mashrou’, which is now set to be shown at Kunstnernes Hus. She conducted filming in the Jordan Valley, worked with archival material in Ramallah, and further developed the project in Bergen through editing, sound work, and conceptual development. Her resource group includes, among others, the artist and curator Haig Aivazian and Selim Malic.
As a result of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and increasing Israeli aggression in the West Bank, working conditions in Ramallah have become precarious and unpredictable. Harb therefore chose to divide her residency between Ramallah and in BEKs video studio in Bergen from November 2024 to January 2025.
In the Presence of Absence by Shuruq Harb, a poetic and sensory live performance reflecting on a beautiful stone in Ein Qiniya on the outskirts of Ramallah, was presented in November 2025 as part of the BEK symposium The Only Lasting Truth Is Change: Voice, Seed, Brutality in Bergen, Norway.
Read more about the project in the publication Al-Mashrou’ – A Conversation Between Shuruq Harb and Samira Makki, published by BEK in 2025. The publication consists of an interview between Samira Makki and Shuruq Harb about Harb’s film al-Mashrou’. The conversation addresses the film’s themes, the process of making it, and the historical and political context surrounding the project. It also touches on broader questions related to documentary filmmaking in Palestine, the concept of the archive, and the idea of interrupted futures.
Images: 1) Film still from Al Mashrou’ by Shuruq Harb 2) Shuruq Harb, photo: BEK