The women went on an engaging intimate journey, seeking to photograph the presence of their lost loved ones, and to give voice to the absence, the lacking, the void
Vardi Kahana, project curator: “Ten women, some who have never touched a camera. Their photographs are art and some are real poetry.”
An exhibition of life and bereavement through the camera lens, in a unique photography project which exposes the internal worlds of ten Israeli and Palestinian women, who have all lost what is most dear to them in the war between the two nations. The women went on an engaging intimate journey, seeking to photograph the presence of their lost loved ones, and to give voice to the absence, the lacking, the void.
The exhibition displayed photos taken by the project participants, in their natural environment and during mutual meetings held on both sides of the border. Mashka Litvak, who lost her father and brother, recalls that through the photographs she felt closer to her deceased brother. She chose to photograph the fields of Kibbutz Negba, which had awoken hidden memories within her, and her brother’s watch, that stopped ticking the moment he died. Nasra Shihab, who lost both her sons, photographed her son’s room, which has remained unchanged after his death, a decade ago, with his empty clothes spread out on the bed.
The project ran along with video art work by director Nurit Keidar, in the “Neighbors – Women Creating Reconciliation” event at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, in 2013, in the exhibition of Beit Hagefen in Haifa, in the Israeli-Palestinian Memorial day ceremony in Tel Aviv, Paris, Seattle and also in Berlin.
It is available internationally for showing.
Renown Photographers – Vardi Kahana, Miki Kratsman and Atta Awisat lent their professional talent to the project.
Vardi Kahana, project curator: “Ten women, some who have never touched a camera. Their photographs are art and some are real poetry.”
