Emma K. Thomas

Existing only in maquette form at present, Qasr is the model of a building that no longer exists; a two-storey dwelling constructed in traditional style, hand built from limestone, by the great-uncle of Palestinian author and human rights defender Raja Shehadeh.

Raja describes his encounter in the hills around Ramallah with what he believes to be this building, on his return from London as a newly-qualified lawyer in the 1970s, in his memoir ‘Palestinian Walks – Notes on a vanishing landscape.’ He describes his great uncle Abu Ameen’s efforts to build the Qasr, with his newly-wed wife Zariefeh, she keeping them fed by foraging for food in the hills as they become engrossed in the task of making the building, and his great uncle’s unshakeable belief -sadly misplaced- that the building will endure. The structure provides a conduit for Raja, connecting him with the past – his family’s and his people’s past.

I see buildings as repositories for our most basic hopes and fears; our hopes for protection, safety and refuge and our fears of collapse and erasure. I have also spent a great deal of time thinking about displacement, exile and trauma. For this building to be reconstructed somewhere in the world, I hope by Palestinian stonemasons, would make it an exile, but also a resilient survivor of trauma and a testament to the culture that produced it.