Last Updated on 01/30/2025 by Lara Carretero
We’ve always championed photographers whose works focus on their community’s challenges. The images that they make are often more personal and profound, as opposed to an outsider documenting the situation. An example would be Arab photographers chronicling the changes within their society, which gives birth to some truly extraordinary visuals. Like them, many talented Palestinian photographers have been documenting their identities in powerful projects. As part of a new exhibition, Palo Gallery is bringing together the works of three such Palestinian photographers whose works will strike an emotional chord in your heart.
All images are screenshots from Palo Gallery’s website.
Titled Longing: In Between Homelands, it showcases the works of photographers who have been living in exile: Ameen Abo Kaseem, Nadia Bseiso, and Lina Khalid. Through the exhibit, one can view displacement’s deeply personal and emotional impact and the complexities of belonging as a Palestinian individual. The artists, whose works have been chosen from the Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP), explore the relationship between memory, political conflict, and the ongoing struggle of Palestinians living in exile. Considering that many Palestinians have evacuated from Gaza and the West Bank since Israeli occupation took over, the series only adds meaningful layers to the much-needed discourse of Palestinian freedom.
For instance, Ameen’s series, We Deserved a Better Time on this Earth, showcases the everyday moments as a form of diptychs. He uses both joyful and chaotic scenes next to one another to create tension and hope that depicts the life of someone living in exile. The images are also paired with text from his diary entries, which further help viewers understand the inner turmoil he must have gone through. “I wonder: if I were born on the other side of the world, would I be in this same moment?” he wrote in his diary. “There was never anything I believed in like love, but today, I find it a compass pointing to nothing.”
Nadia Bseiso’s work, in contrast, depicts water scarcity. Her project, Infertile Crescent, explores the convergence of geopolitical and ecological issues in the Jordanian landscape. By highlighting water scarcity and its relation to the border conflict in the area, Bseiso reveals the places and the people who are affected by the ongoing struggle for land and resources. In one of her images, Bseiso depicts children swimming in a clear pond, symbolizing the dual role of water as both a scarce resource and a symbol of hope. Her series only helps us to understand how power works and how the next war we may have will be over water resources. Furthermore, this is the only color series in the entire exhibition.
Lina’s family fled Palestine during the Nabka of 1948, and her work today explores the complexities of exile through her series To Look Over There is a Sin. The Palestinian photographer documented the Dead Sea’s serene black-and-white landscapes while commenting on the painful proximity of home from afar. “The exhibition is a space to express the profound experiences of loss and transformation that deeply impact our lives as Palestinians born and living in exile,” Khalid shared with Artnet News. Like others, her photographs also delve into the emotional and physical separation of Palestinian refugees from their homes.
Through this showcase, visitors will get a chance to get a glimpse into the complex lives of Palestinians and further understand what they go through is a fraction of the suffering we will endure in our entire lifetime. In fact, such narratives need to be supported more so, as they offer us a moment of reflection and contemplation of our personal and collective experiences as a society.
The exhibition will be on display until February 8, and all proceeds will go directly to the artists. For more information, visit Palo Gallery’s website.