In this commissioned work, Kaabi-Linke references the myth of the Orient and the labyrinthe anatomy of an olive tree. Viewers are invited to walk through segments of the tree arranged like a maze in a European garden. The experience is intended to be a riddle rooted in the Greek origins of the word labyrinth, meaning ‘double-headed axe,’ and questions the notion of the Orient as a puzzle that must be solved.
— Sara Raza
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, “One Olive Garden Tree,” a new commission at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. For this affecting installation, the Tunis-born, Berlin-based conceptual artist cut a single olive tree into cross sections, which she then embedded in concrete-skimmed slabs. Visually, it looks like a Donald Judd sculpture sprouting unexpected life; it’s also a meditation on oneness and separateness. Visitors walk through the voids dividing the tree, which has generated a sort of indoor forest. At a time of widespread conflict, it’s also hard not to think about the olive branch as an emblem of peace, here exposed to its vulnerable heartwood
— Glenn Adamson
Lab Note #OneOliveTreeGarden
One Olive Tree Garden (2024) – a single olive tree, fragmented in the pursuit of understanding
This installation consists of six double-sided concrete walls, inlaid with 12 slices of one olive tree—cut apart like a C-section. Visitors enter the tree by stepping inside and walking through its dissected form—an experience usually impossible for humans.
Yet, in seeing the details, we lose the tree.
This paradox mirrors the mechanisms of Orientalism, as described by Edward Said. In isolating, analyzing, aestheticizing, and reassembling cultures through an external lens, the observer creates a new construction that reflects their own fears and desires rather than the original whole.
Visitors may notice that all the scattered pieces belong to one tree, yet the tree itself has vanished, hidden within an exploded cube of concrete.
The olive tree—deeply rooted in the land, a symbol of the Mediterranean and the people who have cultivated it for generations—stands for endurance, belonging, and life. But here, uprooted, dissected, and encased in concrete—like a partition wall—it speaks of forced separation, fragmentation, and control. A reminder that the pursuit of understanding can sometimes erase the very thing it seeks to know.
Disclaimer: The tree itself was not cut down for this work—the farmers decided to uproot it after it stopped bearing fruit. No living tree was harmed in the process.
