Join the Land Keepers Release Event on Friday, May 29th, from 6:30–8:30 PM NYC time at The People’s Forum (320 West 37th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues) New York, NY 10018 in the Michael Ratner classroom for the release event for Land Keepers, a reader by EcoRove published by GenderFail. EcoRove’s Land Keepers Reader brings together writers, activists, journalists, farmers, and ecologists from across Bilad al-Sham — Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine — to tell stories of green resistance in the Jabal al-Sheikh ecological zone. Spanning South Lebanon, the occupied Jawlan, and the occupied Galilee, this landscape faces ongoing ecocide, defined as the deliberate destruction of land and ecologies used by the settler-colonial regime to erode livelihoods, cultures, and environments.
The event will include a conversation between EcoRove’s Iyad Abou Gaida with contributors Mahdi Sabbagh, Hussein Chaabane, and Michelle Eid, moderated by Lara Arafeh of Majlis NYC. Tickets are available on a sliding scale to ensure everyone can afford to attend. If you have the means, please consider purchasing a supporter ticket to support this important work. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. All tickets will come with a special risograph print created exclusively for this release event!
Ticket Pricing: Community Ticket: $10.00 Community Ticket, including a copy of Land Keepers: $30.00 General Ticket: $25.00 General Ticket, including a copy of Land Keepers: $50 Supporter Ticket: $50.00 Supporter Ticket, including a copy of Land Keepers and an 11×17 in limited edition Risograph print by Iyad Abou Gaida: $100.00 The People’s Forum 320 West 37th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues) New York, NY 10018 in the Michael Ratner classroom Friday, May 29th, from 6:30–8:30 PM
Land Keepers Reader: https://genderfailpress.info/Land-Keepers With contributions by Mahdi Sabbagh, Hamza Hamouchene, Public Works, Hussein Chaabane, Hisham Younes, Nadine El-Khoury, Michelle Eid, and Munira Khayyat, EcoRove’s Land Keepers Reader brings together writers, activists, journalists, farmers, and ecologists from across Bilad al-Sham — Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine — to tell stories of green resistance in the Jabal al-Sheikh ecological zone. Spanning South Lebanon, the occupied Jawlan, and the occupied Galilee, this landscape faces ongoing ecocide, defined as the deliberate destruction of land and ecologies used by the settler-colonial regime to erode livelihoods, cultures, and environments. The Reader highlights these struggles through essays, research, and testimonies that show how native communities remain rooted in place, resisting colonial environmental orientalism, greenwashing, and scorched-earth tactics. As part of a wider body of work that includes a documentary film, tapestries, and sculptural pieces, the Reader amplifies indigenous ecological knowledge and envisions regenerative futures for threatened landscapes. Land Keepers Edited by Ecorove (Iyad Abou Gaida and Jumanah Abbas) With work by Mahdi Sabbagh, Hamza Hamouchene, Public Works, Hussein Chaabane, Hisham Younes, Nadine El-Khoury, Michelle Eid, and Munira Khayyat) Cover illustration by Iyad Abou Gaida Designed by GenderFail (Be Oakley) 144 pages Risograph Printed 1st Edition of 600 April 2026
EcoRove: EcoRove is a collaborative, multimedia, research project and co-collaborative production studio examining the politics of critical zones and the livelihood of humans and non-human species who dwell in them. Our mission is to empower individuals and organizations to share knowledge, data, and narratives that re-contextualize eco-socio-political dynamics through a broad spectrum of documentary, scientific, and technological approaches. In 2020, EcoRove was awarded the Arab Fund for Art & Culture Fine Arts Grant for their project Cedar Exodus, which was exhibited at The New Museum in 2023 – 2024. They have been published in “Pre-Occupied Thoughts” (Al-Rawiya, 2024), and participated in WORLDING 2025 at MIT.
Majlis NY: Majlis NY is a cultural collective dedicated to fostering dialogue, artistic expression, and intellectual exchange within New York’s diverse communities. Inspired by the tradition of the majlis—a gathering space for conversation and storytelling—Majlis NY hosts readings and discussions that highlight voices from the SWANA. Through its programming, Majlis creates an inclusive space for artists, writers, and thinkers to engage with critical social and political issues while celebrating cultural heritage and contemporary creativity.
GenderFail: GenderFail is a publishing outlet that seeks to instigate works that expand queer subjectivity through a working-class lens. GenderFail sees failure as a boundless source of inspiration in our work, as a tool to both undo acts of oppression and imagine new systems of liberation. Often these failures are not ours but ones we inherit through systems of Zionism, colonialism, white supremacy, and other forms of silence of oppression. With GenderFail, Oakley has published over 140 editions, including works by A.L. Steiner, Abigail Lucien, Paul Soulellis, Lex Brown, Coco Klockner, Morgan Bassichis, Eileen Myles, Pamela Sneed, Viva Ruiz, E. Jane, and many, more. Oakley has been an Artist in Residence with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (October 5, 2024- March 02, 25), Acre Residency (August 2022), and Wendy’s Subway (October 1, 2018 – December 31, 2018). In 2022, Oakley was awarded a 3-year $30,000 grant through the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for their ongoing work with GenderFail.
Speaker bios:
Iyad Abou Gaida: is a Lebanese farmer, ecological designer, architect, and researcher, and co-founder of EcoRove, a collaborative research and storytelling platform. Iyad’s research engages ecologies of human and non-human beings through film, illustration, and spatial practice, addressing aesthetic and socio-political urgencies for architecture and urbanism across dimensions and geographies. Through EcoRove, Iyad’s work has been presented at the New Museum, New Inc Demo 2025, and the Tallinn Architecture Biennial (TAB). He was part of New Inc’s Creative Science Track (Year 11), and the work has been supported by the Alserkal Arts Foundation and AFAC, with an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica. Iyad gained farming experience living on his ancestral terraced agricultural fields with his family in Hasbaya, South Lebanon. He is the co-founder of Taïm Olive, a producer of extra virgin olive oil that honors traditional farming practices and the resilience of the land.
Lara Arafeh: is an independent curator, writer, and researcher based in Brooklyn. She also serves as the director of Majlis NY, dedicated to community building, promoting cultural exchange, and showcasing voices from the SWANA. Her research focuses on decolonial methodologies and narrative histories while exploring the intricate intersections of culture, identity, and feminism.
Mahdi Sabbagh: is an architectural scholar and urbanist. He co-curates the Palestine Festival of Literature and serves as Editor at Large for the Avery Review. He is the editor of Their Borders, Our World (Haymarket Press, 2024) and was a 2023 Matakyev Research Fellow at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. His work appears in the Journal of Public Culture, Jerusalem Quarterly, The Architectural Review, Art Review, Curbed, Architecture of the Territory (Kaph Books, 2022), Open Gaza (AUC Press, 2021), and other publications.
Hussein Chaabane: is a Lebanese investigative journalist and war correspondent from Tyre and Ain Baal in Jabal Amel, South Lebanon. He is a graduate of the Lebanese University. His work focuses on occupation, political violence, and the destruction of place, with particular attention to South Lebanon and the histories carried by its people and landscape. Bringing together field reporting, documentary investigation, and legal analysis, he is a journalist at Legal Agenda, where he writes long-form investigations and critical analysis.
Michelle Eid: is a Lebanese researcher and Editor-in-Chief of Al Rawiya, a platform and magazine covering stories and analyses on Bilad al-Sham. Her work explores socio-economic justice, agropolitics, and food sovereignty, with a focus on the relationship between land, identity, and struggle.
Public Works: Public Works Studio is a Lebanon-based action research organization that uses a multidisciplinary approach to spatial justice. It addresses, mobilizes around, and actively responds to the chronic challenges facing just cities, inclusive urban governance and equitable development in Lebanon.
