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Growing up in Jericho, I remember walking alongside the sound of the water and jumping over the canals to enter my aunt's house.
Many kids in Jericho learned how to swim for the first time in the channels of Ain Al Sultan Spring. Women used to collect water, do the laundry, and wash dishes with each other. The spring and the channels are more than just a resource. They were a safe space for women and neighbours to socialize and deeply connect with their city.
Many believe the spring to be a divine Feminine - a living entity and a sanctuary for prayers and blessings, whose waters sometimes turn red with a period. The spring was how they made sense of the world, a place to pray for fertility, for marriage, and for healing.
Recently, the city has been rapidly gentrified as many Jeruslamites move to Jericho, building villas and swimming pools because of the restrictions they are facing in Jerusalem from the Israelis. The city expanded, and as a result, in 2006, the channels were cut off and turned into a pipeline system. Many water channels are either dry or gone now, ripping up our relationship not only with the spring but with each other. As the channels become invisible, many memories and stories have been lost and erased.
Jericho is the lowest city in the world, 250 meters below the sea level with desert-like weather, and our city is barren without the spring that gave birth to it. Here, I trace what we have lost, and the relationship that remains.
The dried water channels that used to cross our house.
قنوات المياه التي جفت، والتي كانت تعبر من خلال منزلنا.
For drinking water, call this number
مياه للشرب، اتصل بهذا الرقم
The waterkeeper’s kids scribbled their names on the water tank.
اولاد حارسة النبعة كتبوا اسمائهم على خزان المياه.
The Waterkeeper kids scribbled their names on the water tank.
الأطفال "حُرّاس الماء" كتبوا أسماءهم على خزان الماء.
Yaqeen Yamani (she/her, b.1997) is a Palestinian photographer and artist from Jericho who received a BA in Media Studies and Film from Al-Quds Bard College and is a Fulbright Scholar with a Masters in Fine Art from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Her art practice includes photography, video, text art and printmaking. She has exhibited work in Palestine, United States, Germany, Bahrain, and Egypt.
Yaqeen Yamani (she/her, b.1997) is a Palestinian photographer and artist from Jericho who received a BA in Media Studies and Film from Al-Quds Bard College and is a Fulbright Scholar with a Masters in Fine Art from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Her art practice includes photography, video, text art and printmaking. She has exhibited work in Palestine, United States, Germany, Bahrain, and Egypt.
