Organised by Birzeit Municipality and civil society organisations in Birzeit, in partnership with the Palestinian Museum 

Friday 9 October 2026, 09:00–11:30 
Start: Birzeit Old City 
Finish: The Palestinian Museum 

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we come together to stand in solidarity with women, look after our health, and support one another. Join us for the Pink October Marathon, following a route from Birzeit Old City to the Museum. 

The morning concludes in the Museum gardens with a visit to “Al-Mintar”, an installation by the late Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour. From the heart of the garden, the work takes us back to the agricultural and architectural memory of rural Palestine. 

About Al-Mintar 

“Al-Mintar” recalls a feature of the Palestinian rural landscape that stayed with Sliman Mansour from his childhood in Birzeit. Manateer, agricultural watchtowers also known as “farm palaces”, were part of Palestinian agrarian life, closely associated with ta’zeeb, when families moved out to their land for the season, and with harvest and fruit picking, when long days were spent among fields, vineyards, and fig, mulberry, and olive trees. Mansour wrote that these structures remained a measure of how close he felt to, or how far he had drifted from, his personal and collective history. In his memory, they belonged to summer and the village, to relatives and food, and to the bustle that filled the place from dawn until late into the night. 

Sketched by Mansour, “Al-Mintar” was developed by the Museum into an architectural plan and realised in the gardens using natural stone and traditional methods. The installation brings back an architectural form now at risk of disappearance and, with it, something of the life that once gathered around it: working the land, seasonal stays, and the knowledge bound up with the construction and use of manateer. Its significance extends beyond the artwork itself, opening a space for learning and for passing on knowledge of manateer and their place within the Palestinian agrarian landscape.