Hannah Yağmur Gürsoy
Hannah Yağmur Gürsoy is a half-Turkish, half-German artist from South East London whose work examines the themes of identity, marginalisation, and belonging. Her artistic practice emerges from the intersection of personal history and academic inquiry, informed by her studies at SOAS University of London, where she obtained a BA in History of Art & Middle Eastern Studies and an MA in Human Rights Law. Her work positions art as both a political medium and a form of cultural testimony in response to the systemic uprooting of communities.
The Pulse of the Olive Tree
Woven Cyanotype
About the work the artist said:
“The Pulse of the Olive Tree conveys the olive tree as a living emblem of homeland, memory, and resistance. For Palestinians, it carries centuries of rootedness; to sever it is to sever continuity, to unravel a history embedded in the earth. The olive tree functions as a living archive, a symbol of belonging continually threatened by dispossession.
Created through cyanotype, the piece leaves behind a deep indigo imprint: a permanence that resists erasure. The blue is not incidental; it is the colour of peace, purity, and truth, evoking clarity of belonging and the sacred bond between people and land. By choosing a medium that imprints permanently, the work materially counters the processes of erasure enacted through genocide, colonialism and forced migration.
Encircling the image, the phrase “Belonging and loyalty to the olive tree is a sacred love” appears in both Arabic and English. The English acknowledges the diaspora, while also gesturing to the violence of erasure and the attempt to overwrite Palestinian identity. Yet the Arabic script resists asserting that what is native to the land cannot be eradicated.
This is more than an image. It is a refusal of erasure. It is a testament to rootedness. It is an archive of survival, affirming resilience, belonging and the persistence of identity in the face of systemic uprooting.”
Learn more about Hannah’s work:
Social media