Areej Ashhab
Areej Ashhab is an artist and researcher whose work addresses material heritage loss, more-than-human ecologies, and land politics. Areej’s practice spans material experimentation, writing, and film, and often unfolds collectively through walks, workshops, and shared meals. She is the co-founder of Al-Block, documenting lost narratives of the Palestinian landscape through collective walking, and Al-Wah’at, a translocal collective countering anthropocentric and colonial narratives around arid lands and futures. In her recent project A Hand of Fire and Stone, she traced abandoned lime pits in Palestine, built a lime kiln prototype in Bethlehem, and activated this lost architecture through fire, songs, and meals; following the elemental cycle of lime from stone, to paste, and back to stone.
Ashhab's writings appear in e-flux Architecture, The Funambulist Magazine, Avery Review (Al-Wah’at), and Border Environments. She has taught at the Royal College of Art, London, and the Arab American University, Ramallah, and has lectured widely at international universities and conferences. Areej holds an MA from the Centre for Research Architecture (2022) and was a 2025 resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie with Al-Wah’at.
Areej @ DAI:
2025-2026 COOP study group ~ TENDING FORESTS IN OUR MINDS
Palestine Teach-Out #14: Unsettling the Forest: Tracing Land-Based Kinship through Fire and Stone