Athar Jaber lives and works in Belgium, and is an Associate Researcher and Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. For the exhibition at the Palestinian Museum, Jaber is creating an abstract limestone sculpture which encapsulates the different functions that stones have in Jerusalem. “Jerusalem is a city built of white limestone. Some of these are holy stones and people have developed rituals around them. Other stones are part of daily life, like the cobbled streets and stone houses,” says Jaber. He will be carving cavities into a stone slab, for visitors to slot in parts of their body, such as their hands and shoulders. “In the classical notion of sculpture the body is trapped inside the stone. It is up to the sculptor to carve it out and release it. Yet in Jerusalem it seems people want to go back into the stones by touching them, crouching inside them, seeking comfort and putting all their hopes into them.”