Waahid in Jaffa

'Waahid in Jaffa' is a photographic series contemplating the visual experiences and emotional connections of young Palestinian men from the West Bank who infiltrated into Israel without being caught, putting their life at risk in order to find a day's work. The series of mainly nocturnal photographs show moments of individual preoccupation and solitude, as the youths wander aimlessly in the city of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa during the month of Ramadan, waiting for an opportunity to happen. The otherwise lively Tel-Aviv and Jaffa are presented here as places of shadows, real and metaphorical, and the subjects in the photographs look furtive, lonely, suspicious. Whether porcupine-hunting or just hanging out the boys’ existence lies between night and day, nature and urban, adolescence and adulthood, everyday life and political conflict. Painted against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian experience this body of work examines how an ‘outsider’ reality has become the defining characteristic of the collective identity and national existence of the Palestinians in Israel, and challenges their status as a threat or as adversaries through Israeli policies, laws, and declared ideology.

The series was shortlisted for the Meitar Photography Award 2016; and was exhibited as part of The International Photography Festival, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, 23 April – 7 May 2016.

• http://photographyfestival.co.il
• http://www.touristisrael.com/internation...