Hiba Tahhans work takes its name from Arabic proverbs about secrecy. It grew out of a series of workshops conducted as part of the Hiba’s master research, using art as an unspoken language — a space where people could express what words alone could not carry. At the end of each session, things were left unspoken, entrusted without being named. Hiba began to think of herself as a tree: holding what was given, without letting it fall away. When she returned to Palestine for fieldwork in late 2025, she found the olive trees — sacred in Palestinian life and culture — in a difficult season. Many were not bearing fruit. Access to them had been restricted by settler attacks and the tightening of movement under Israeli occupation, leaving trees untended during the olive harvest, one of the most significant traditions in Palestinian collective life. People said it was as if the trees were feeling what was happening around them.