MIDEAST: Israeli and Palestinian photographers exhibit their 'Frames of Reality'

Record ID: 397730

  • Title: MIDEAST: Israeli and Palestinian photographers exhibit their 'Frames of Reality'
  • Date: 4th April 2013
  • Summary: TEL AVIV-JAFFA, ISRAEL (APRIL 3, 2013) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF PERES CENTER FOR PEACE HEADQUARTERS 'PERES PEACE HOUSE' SIGN READING 'PERES PEACE HOUSE' INTERIOR OF "FRAMES OF REALITY' PHOTOGRAPH EXHIBITION VARIOUS OF PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE EXHIBITION PEOPLE LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS "FRAMES OF REALITY" EXHIBITION CURATOR, AMI STEINITZ, LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS (SOUNDBITE) (English) "
  • Embargoed: 19th April 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Arts,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAD14QMBCFURP4PMO8EY3EV5B6F
  • Story Text: A photographic workshop and exhibition in Tel Aviv called 'Frames of Reality' brings Israeli and Palestinian photojournalists together to document life in the region.
    A photographic workshop and exhibition at Tel Aviv's Peres Center for Peace has enabled Israeli and Palestinian photojournalists to work together to document their lives.
    The project, which has been running for four years, brings together photographers from all cultures in Israel and the Palestinian Territories to take part in workshops and produce picture essays to show the diversity and similarity of their lives in the region.
    The workshops are run by an organisation called Freedom To Create in partnership with Local Testimony and the Peres Center for Peace, with the aim of using the creative arts to bridge the social divides that exist.
    The series of photographs show the variety of life - young Arab children playing in Jaffa, elderly Jews who fought and fled Nazi Europe living in Israel, or elderly widows living in a Gaza home, and ecological life on a kibbutz.
    Exhibition curator Ami Steinitz, a board member of Local Testimony explained that by using photographs, the language and words that separate communities are taken away.
    "The interest is to bring these people that represent this region without separation, because this is the global way, this way, specifically with images that carry no specific language, like Arabic, Hebrew, English," he said.
    For the photographers involved, the exhibition gives them a chance to have their work seen by a much wider audience as the exhibition will also appear online and in a book.
    West Bank photographer Elias Halabi began his photo project by looking at the graffiti art that decorated the separation wall, an imposing presence that divides his home town Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Halabi soon realised that it was possible to focus on life on the other side by looking through the cracks, and saw this as a way of making the wall disappear.
    "This was the first time that I actually see my neighbour's house after ten years you know. I always used to go there, and now it's behind the wall," Halabi explained.
    The twice monthly workshops involved the photographers working together to choose the best pictures, and Halabi said this focus meant that political opinions and feelings were not involved.
    "It's not really easy to be there sitting there you know like a group of mixed Palestinian Israelis, because for a minute you have to put all the ideologies that you have, everything that you have, aside," he said.
    Israeli Arab photo journalist Shady Ablasi said that as well as taking his pictures, he enjoyed working with and seeing the work that his colleagues produced.
    "It was very interesting to see this cooperation. It was very interesting to see the projects with the emotional baggage of each photographer from each side," Ablasi said.
    For Ori Sadeh, the 'Frames of Reality' workshop is not only about the photographs.
    "I think the workshop is also about photography, but also maybe more important about the way to achieve this and all the meetings to get people together," he said.
    Sadeh's collection of photographs highlights the co-existence between the Arab and Jewish neighbours in the area where he lives.
    "Of course I am Jewish, and most of the neighbourhood are Arab people living here, and I wanted to explore this living together, this 'du kiyum' in Hebrew, and it sounded to me a good way to do it," he explained.
    Rania Joubran, the director of the Leadership and Community department at the Peres Center for Peace, said that her organisation was committed to bringing together all the different communities, and that 'Frames of Reality' was just one of many projects with this aim.
    "The centre is working in many sections to improve human, social and economical relations between the societies. The main sections are medicine and health, sports, cultural and arts, economy and business," Joubran said.
    The exhibition runs until April 13 at Peres Peace House in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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