Olive Project 
Keep Hope Alive: Answering The Olive Tree Campaign

In October of 2004, members of Artists Against Occupation (AAO) visited Palestine. They were invited to work with the East Jerusalem YMCA (who initiated the Olive Tree Campaign along with the YWCA of Palestine) holding art workshops for the community. During their stay, AAO members visited flourishing olive groves in Bethlehem, Qalqilya, and Nazareth, as well as previous sites of olive groves that have since been razed for the construction of the Apartheid Wall.

AAO members came to Palestine from Canada, France, Japan, and the United States. The art workshops held were: papermaking with olive leaves, kit making (marbling olive oil and Chinese ink on Japanese paper), video, "box-art", performance art, and lecturing. This event, named the "Olive Project", was an effort to bring Palestinian artists together. Participating venues were: Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre (Ramallah), YMCA ( Jerusalem ), and the International Centre of Bethlehem.

The "Olive Project KEEP HOPE ALIVE" is a traveling exhibition that will contain artworks from the Olive Project and also artworks featuring olives, olive trees, or olive products made by AAO members who were not able to participate in the project. The exhibit (to be dedicated to the Olive Tree Campaign) will begin in Tokyo and hopefully will expand as it travels.

The Olive Tree Campaign is now asking the global community to sponsor the resuscitation of Palestine 's olive groves. The suggested donation per tree is $20 USD and the campaign goal is to replant 50,000 olive trees. Since the beginning of the second Intifada one million fruit trees have been uprooted, a quarter of those are olive trees. http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=1  

Artists Against Occupation