Jumana Manna’s work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land, and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture, and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorization and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration.

Recent solo exhibitions include Break, Take, Erase, Tally, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; MoMA PS1, New York (2022–2023); Preservation Paradox, Matadero Madrid; Foragers, Hollybush Gardens, London (both 2022); Jumana Manna / MATRIX 278, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco; Sketch and Bread, Balade Berlin-Charlottenburg, Villa Oppenheim, Berlin; Thirty Plumbers in the Belly, MHKA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; Jumana Manna, Hollybush Gardens, London (all 2021); Wild Relatives, Tensta Kunsthall, Sweden (2020); and Jumana Manna, Tabakalera, San Sebastian, Spain (2019).

She has participated in numerous significant group exhibitions and festivals, including Liquid Intelligence, TBA21, Madrid, Spain; EVA International, Limerick, Ireland; In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, Kuchi-Muziris Biennale, India; The Creative Human, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; The Butterfly Affect, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; Being as Communion, Thessaloniki Biennial 8, Greece (all 2023); Alexandria: Past Futures, Bozar, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Forest: Wake This Ground, Arnolfini, Bristol; Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo; FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial (all 2022); Toronto Biennial of Art (2022; 2019); 11th Taipei Biennial (2018); Nordic Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale (2017); Liverpool Biennial (2016); Marrakech Biennale 6 (2016); 54th and 56th Vienna International Film Festivals (2016 and 2018); 66th and 68th Berlinale (2016 and 2018); and CPH:DOX, Copenhagen (2018), where Wild Relatives (2018) won the New:Visions award. Manna was awarded the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Palestinian Artist Award in 2012 and the Ars Viva Prize for Visual Arts in 2017.

Manna's work is held in significant public and private collections internationally, including MoMA, New York; MCA Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-On-Hudson; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Carre d’art, Nîmes, France; National Museum of Norway, Oslo; and Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE.