Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine
by Vera Kachouh and Christina Labey
Conveyor Editions is pleased to announce the publication of Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine, featuring an essay by Vera Kachouh and new work by Christina Labey. Other Bodies is the first book in a series of essays, published as part of Ode to an Ancient Tree, an interdisciplinary project by Christina Labey that explores the intersection of plants, people, and place.
In her eponymous essay “Other Bodies,” Vera Kachouh reflects on the cultural significance and culinary influence of olive trees. Interweaving the personal and political, she traces their history across Greek mythology and Mediterranean landscapes to New York City via Lebanon into present-day Palestine. Kachouh explores the dualities of the olive tree, from the tender acts of harvesting its fruits by hand or preparing traditional Lebanese dishes with olive oil to the deliberate destruction of ancestral olive groves in Palestine and violent deaths inflicted on those who tend them. Imbued with meaning across cultures, the olive tree represents resistance and steadfastness, families and futures, and an enduring connection to the land, while a single branch serves as a universal symbol of peace. Other Bodies is a meditation on the longevity of olive trees in contrast to the lives and landscapes destroyed from the war, asking who is permitted to exist—to grow, to blossom, to live—in this world.
Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine features new work by Christina Labey, created alongside the essay, that explores the reciprocity between humans and olive trees. Through layers of watercolor studies, handwritten notations, and analogue photographs—intertwined with historical images and herbarium pages from the American Colony in Jerusalem archives—she explores themes of collective care and cultivation. The artwork is accompanied by a brief essay, “Archive Notes: The Landscape as a Library,” a meditation on trees as living archives of memory, knowledge, and language.
Shipping Begins on October 1, 2026
Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine
by Vera Kachouh and Christina Labey
Conveyor Editions is pleased to announce the publication of Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine, featuring an essay by Vera Kachouh and new work by Christina Labey. Other Bodies is the first book in a series of essays, published as part of Ode to an Ancient Tree, an interdisciplinary project by Christina Labey that explores the intersection of plants, people, and place.
In her eponymous essay “Other Bodies,” Vera Kachouh reflects on the cultural significance and culinary influence of olive trees. Interweaving the personal and political, she traces their history across Greek mythology and Mediterranean landscapes to New York City via Lebanon into present-day Palestine. Kachouh explores the dualities of the olive tree, from the tender acts of harvesting its fruits by hand or preparing traditional Lebanese dishes with olive oil to the deliberate destruction of ancestral olive groves in Palestine and violent deaths inflicted on those who tend them. Imbued with meaning across cultures, the olive tree represents resistance and steadfastness, families and futures, and an enduring connection to the land, while a single branch serves as a universal symbol of peace. Other Bodies is a meditation on the longevity of olive trees in contrast to the lives and landscapes destroyed from the war, asking who is permitted to exist—to grow, to blossom, to live—in this world.
Other Bodies: On Olive Trees in Palestine features new work by Christina Labey, created alongside the essay, that explores the reciprocity between humans and olive trees. Through layers of watercolor studies, handwritten notations, and analogue photographs—intertwined with historical images and herbarium pages from the American Colony in Jerusalem archives—she explores themes of collective care and cultivation. The artwork is accompanied by a brief essay, “Archive Notes: The Landscape as a Library,” a meditation on trees as living archives of memory, knowledge, and language.
Shipping Begins on October 1, 2026
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