The video begins with cutting the watermelon down, and hand-pressing the juice out of each
slice into a bowl one by one. During my first cut in the first frames, there’s a reverse motion
that was influenced by the idea of not cutting down such a powerful symbol. At first, I wanted
to reverse the whole video, however, during the multiple attempts of the filming process, I
realized that instead of reversing the video, I can reverse my actions. Therefore, I hand-pressed
the juice, picked up the skin slices with the pulp, and attempted to rebuild my watermelon back
again as close to what a whole watermelon is. Once I rebuilt the watermelon back together, I
consumed all of the juice as quickly as I could.
This process intimidates the bonding procedure with one’s culture through an object and in the
end after “exploring” the culture piece by piece I have consumed all of it, so it goes through
my body thus it is a part of me now.
The use of the watermelon came from the similarity the I have discovered between two of my
cultures. Palestinians for decades have been using watermelon as a symbol of their resistance.
After the occupation of Palestine and the Palestinian flag was banned, along with all political
artworks, that didn’t stop people and eventually, people began to use watermelon as the symbol
of resistance as it had all the colors of the Palestinian flag. On the other hand, in 2022, during
the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the battle of Kherson was one of the most important
battles. When the Ukrainian liberated Kherson, it was one of the biggest victories for the
people and the watermelon as the symbol of resistance was born and took over all Ukrainian
people, companies, and social media. Watermelon became an important symbol for the people
of Ukraine as well, symbolizing a very similar concept of resistance.