The Unsettled Archive
Series of printed chiffon banners with companion works, dimensions variable, 2026.
Overall Description
The Unsettled Archive is a body of work that excavates the photographic archive of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the organization that planted forests and parks over the ruins of Palestinian villages captured and forcibly depopulated in 1948. Working with archival images of these sites, Berdugo uses Adobe Lightroom's generative AI to digitally remove the figures of Jewish Israelis from the photographs, leaving behind only spectral traces — a speculative visualization of landscapes unburdened by their present occupation: a speculative past that might have persisted.
The modified images are printed on translucent chiffon and sewn into large hanging banners, one per erased place, in a planned series that will eventually address all 46 JNF sites that conceal or occupy the ruins of Palestinian villages. Companion works turn attention to the removal process itself, displaying the ghostly silhouettes of excised figures as the software detects and demarcates them — making visible the computational logic of erasure, and sitting uneasily at the seam between critique and complicity: an erasure that mirrors, in method though not in intent, the invisibilization the JNF itself performed on Palestinian presence.
Tsipori over Safuriyya
Printed chiffon, thread, 3’ x 28’, 2026
Tsipori over Safuriyya is a hanging archive composed of images from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) photo archive documenting Tsipori, Israel. At this site, the JNF planted trees over the ruins of Safuriyya, a Palestinian village captured and forcibly depopulated in 1948. The banner also incorporates screenshots from Google Street View, juxtaposing the contemporary landscape with its buried history. Using Adobe Lightroom’s generative AI, I digitally removed the figures of Jewish Israelis from these archival photographs while preserving their ghostly traces. The result is a speculative visualization of a landscape unburdened by its present occupation: a haunting past that could have been. The modified images are printed on chiffon and sewn into a single translucent banner, the first in a planned series addressing the 46 JNF sites that conceal or occupy the ruins of Palestinian villages—one chiffon banner per erased place.
This work was made with support from a Kala Art Institute Artist Residency.
Exhibitions
“Flow State – ART/ACT: LOCAL 2026,” David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA. May 26 - Aug 20, 2026.
“Wayfinders: the Art + Architecture Faculty Triennial”, Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. Mar 2 - April 12-2026.
Tsipori over Safuriyya, 2026.
Tsipori over Safuriyya installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Tsipori over Safuriyya work-in-progress at Kala Art Residency, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Castel over al-Qastal
Printed chiffon, thread, 3’ x 13’ 8”, 2026
Castel over al-Qastal is composed of images from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) photo archive documenting the site of the Castel National Park in Israel. At this site, the JNF planted trees over the ruins of al-Qastal, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem that was captured and forcibly depopulated in 1948. Situated on the main road between Jaffa and Jerusalem, al-Qastal's land has since been layered with successive erasures and reuses: a tent encampment for new Jewish immigrants from Iraq, a quarry that mined Jerusalem limestone, and the Israeli neighborhood of Mevasseret Tziyyon, which also sits on the village's former land. The banner also incorporates a photograph of a present-day sign from Castel National Park. Using Adobe Lightroom’s generative AI, the artist digitally removed the figures of Jewish Israelis from these photographs, leaving behind only spectral traces—conjuring a landscape as it might have remained, absent its occupation. Transferred onto chiffon and sewn into a translucent hanging, this banner is the second in a planned series that will address each of the 46 JNF sites concealing the ruins of Palestinian villages, one erased place at a time.
This work was made with support from a Kala Art Institute Artist Residency.
Exhibitions
“Flow State – ART/ACT: LOCAL 2026,” David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA. May 26 - Aug 20, 2026.
Castel over al-Qastal installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Castel over al-Qastal installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
The Removals
Printed chiffon, thread, 36” x 24” each, 2026
The Removals – Ceremony for the Planting of Herschtritt Forest, Horseman, and Youth Camp – are a set of companion works to the banner Tsipori over Safuriyya. Where the banner presents the archival JNF photographs with their figures digitally removed, these works turn attention to the removal process itself. The images display the ghostly outlines of excised figures rendered by Adobe Lightroom, the software used to detect and demarcate them. Caught mid-erasure, the highlighted silhouettes make visible the computational logic underlying the work: the AI's attempt to parse, isolate, and eliminate the human from the landscape. Together, the three works sit uneasily at the seam between critique and complicity, exposing an erasure that mirrors (in method, not in intent) the invisibilization the JNF itself performed on Palestinian presence.
This work was made with support from a Kala Art Institute Artist Residency.
Exhibitions
“Flow State – ART/ACT: LOCAL 2026,” David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA. May 26 - Aug 20, 2026.
Ceremony for the Planting of Herschtritt Forest from The Removals installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Horseman and Youth Camp from The Removals installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Detail from The Removals, installed in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.
Ceremony for the Planting of Herschtritt Forest from The Removals, installed next to Seeing it for the Trees, in “Flow State” at the David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA, 2026.