7 images Created 19 Oct 2013
Palestine
In 2002 and 2003, during the second Palestinian uprising (Intifada) against the Israeli occupation of their land, I traveled throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
In the Gaza border camp of Rafah, Israeli bulldozers were levelling Palestinian homes and building an iron wall along the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians were left homeless and many were injured or killed in the fighting that ensued. I photographed abandoned homes and people as their homes were being demolished.
People without homes and homes without people... This theme continued to develop in the West Bank where Israel was building a giant concrete wall around the entire Palestinian population. Homes were being demolished, land was being confiscated, olive trees were being cut down or uprooted and stolen. I worked with Defence for Children International (DCI), interviewing and photographing children and families whose homes had been blown up by Israeli forces as a form of reprisal for militant involvement as well as the homes of families whose homes were soon to disappear because of the encroachment of the wall.
I chose Twice Removed as the title for this work as it refers not only to family and community, but also to the reality of Palestinian experience, of being removed once again from their homes and their land.
I exhibited the work in Montreal and Winnipeg in diptychs and triptychs, connecting people to their land and their homes.
In the Gaza border camp of Rafah, Israeli bulldozers were levelling Palestinian homes and building an iron wall along the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians were left homeless and many were injured or killed in the fighting that ensued. I photographed abandoned homes and people as their homes were being demolished.
People without homes and homes without people... This theme continued to develop in the West Bank where Israel was building a giant concrete wall around the entire Palestinian population. Homes were being demolished, land was being confiscated, olive trees were being cut down or uprooted and stolen. I worked with Defence for Children International (DCI), interviewing and photographing children and families whose homes had been blown up by Israeli forces as a form of reprisal for militant involvement as well as the homes of families whose homes were soon to disappear because of the encroachment of the wall.
I chose Twice Removed as the title for this work as it refers not only to family and community, but also to the reality of Palestinian experience, of being removed once again from their homes and their land.
I exhibited the work in Montreal and Winnipeg in diptychs and triptychs, connecting people to their land and their homes.
