Microscopic Vision Restoration

The Palestinian coastline stretches approximately 240 kilometres, from Ras Al-Naqoura in the north to Rafah in the south. Over time, this coastline has undergone profound geological, political, economic, and social transformations — changes that have reshaped the relationship between Palestinians and the coastal environment they inhabit, remember, and imagine.

In this work, Shareef Sarhan investigates this relationship through a microscopic examination of the coastline, looking beneath the visible surface to trace the hidden layers, materials, and traces that constitute the place. The work approaches the coast not as a fixed geographical boundary, but as a living archive — one in which geology, memory, human presence, displacement, and time intersect.

Through the restoration of a microscopic vision, fragments and details from different locations along the Palestinian coast are brought into focus, revealing traces that may otherwise remain invisible: sediment, surfaces, textures, and material traces that together reveal a landscape shaped by layers of history, movement, rupture, and continuity.

Through photography, microscopic observation becomes an act of restoration — an attempt to recover what is hidden within the landscape and to make visible the relationship between land, sea, memory, and human presence.