Local archaeologists in Gaza say Israeli shelling damaged the Byzantine church in Jabalia. Nobody outside the territory can say how badly. “It has been damaged for sure in the bombing, but we don’t know the extent, so it may not be there at all any more,” artist Jordan Nassar said. The church now lives, in part, as glass: hand-cut mosaics at a London exhibition depicting an orange tree, a lion, a man and patterns from the original building.
Nassar’s first UK exhibition in a decade is on view at No 9 Cork Street in London, presented by the Dubai gallery The Third Line. The New York artist, of Palestinian and Polish heritage, was born in Manhattan. The show has two parts. One features his tatreez panels, which join Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery with imagined landscapes. The other presents mosaics inspired by Jabalia, examining archaeology and the politics of cultural heritage in conflict.
Heritage Under Threat
Nassar’s interest in Byzantine mosaics began at Ben Gurion International Airport, where he saw two panels taken from a church in what is now northern Israel. “That led into this investigation into the use of archaeology and antiquities, not only for propaganda, but for land grabbing,” he said.
He pointed to the Roman and Byzantine ruins of Sabastia near Nablus, which Israel recently announced it would expropriate and develop as a tourism hub. “Israel is claiming that they’re preserving a historical site. Concurrently, that means that they would have to block off Palestinian access, take more land, and build roads to these sites that then are bifurcating Palestinian land,” he said.
He doesn’t present the mosaics as replicas. “I’m not trying to mimic something that looks 2,000 years old. I’m also not trying to match every single colour and try to be perfect. I’m definitely taking liberties,” he said. He hopes people can see the recreated works outside politicized contexts. “They exist outside of being used as propaganda. They can just exist as something for themselves for their own sake,” he said.
Occupation in the Supply Chain
The panels’ practical journey shows how occupation shapes ordinary work. Nassar designs each piece and commissions embroidery from craftswomen in the West Bank. He buys specific fabric and ships it to a workshop in Ramallah. Delays tied to Israel’s occupation mean he plans for work to take longer and avoids tight deadlines.
The finished embroidery takes a roundabout route. A friend collects it and drives it from the West Bank to Tel Aviv and then Jaffa. A friend in Jaffa mails it to the United States. “She just breaks it up into boxes and sends it in Israel Post, and it honestly comes so fast,” he said. “That’s way faster than trying to ship it from Palestine.”
Diaspora Memory
The landscapes aren’t documentary. Nassar calls them “versions of Palestine as they exist in the minds of the diaspora.” He said: “They are the Palestine I heard stories about growing up, half made of imagination. They are dreamlands and utopias that are colourful and fantastical – beautiful and romantic, but bittersweet.” The 2026 work “They Build Homes with Clouds” sets green, red and purple mountains against an ochre sky and sea, embroidered on canvas and surrounded by four smaller panels with colourful square patterns. His movable panels form geometric shapes, a method inspired by Iranian-American artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and her series “Convertibles.”
His family history offers a diaspora story in miniature. His paternal grandfather migrated to the United States in the 1910s, before the Nakba, helped establish the Arab American community in Yonkers and later sponsored the arrival of hundreds of families displaced by the Nakba. The family prioritized being American. His grandfather opened a cafe selling hamburgers and milkshakes and didn’t teach his children Arabic. “They were never taught Arabic because in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, the mindset was: we’re American now, so we speak English,” Nassar said.
Nassar describes feeling not Palestinian enough “because I’m ‘only half’, and I grew up in New York. There’s this sense (that) I don’t do it right.” He doesn’t speak Arabic fluently and natively, and says his family’s dishes differ from those in Palestine because recipes changed across generations. “My work is very American. It’s like: I’m gonna do it, do something that’s my culture, but also do it my way and that’s individual,” he said.
He resists turning the work into a lecture. “Art is about sharing this human experience with other people,” he said. “I’m not trying to make informational work about Palestine because that’s not what art is for me.” He added: “I am very opinionated about activism and art. I don’t really know if art is the best venue for these things. For me, it’s more about human connection.” He hopes people with a diaspora experience will feel a connection, wherever their families came from.
Why This Matters: Cultural heritage is one of conflict’s quieter casualties. In Gaza, local archaeologists say shelling damaged a Byzantine church, and no one outside can verify what remains. In the West Bank, Israel’s announced expropriation of Sabastia would, in Nassar’s account, block Palestinian access, take more land and bring roads that divide Palestinian territory. These pressures don’t make headlines like casualty counts, but they shape who gets to hold a place’s history. Nassar’s embroidery route, from Ramallah to Jaffa to New York, shows how occupation reaches even an artist’s shipping schedule. That matters to anyone weighing what a negotiated future would have to protect.