Peggy Ahwesh's solo exhibition "The Wayfinders," recently on view at New York's Microscope Gallery, marks a new direction for the experimental filmmaker. For the first time, she incorporates footage from an early-2000s flight simulator alongside original video and animation to create a large-scale installation. The work serves as an elegy for the abandoned Qalandia/Atarot airport, situated between Qalandia and Jerusalem, which operated as a civilian airport from 1948 to 1967 before Israel annexed the site. Through poetic voiceover and imagery of travel and navigation, Ahwesh reflects on Palestine's thwarted right to the sky, the history of wayfinding by the stars, and the porous borders of the past contrasted with today's restrictions.
The exhibition matters because it brings together Ahwesh's pioneering work in avant-garde digital animation and experimental film with urgent political commentary on Palestine and border politics. By using a flight simulator—a tool of virtual travel—to mourn a real airport that once symbolized freedom and connection, Ahwesh creates a meditation on cultural memory, displacement, and the internalized borders that shape identity. The show also represents a significant pivot in her practice, expanding from film into immersive installation, and continues her acclaimed trajectory following the 2021 survey "Vision Machines."