For 75 years, Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel have endured trials of conflict, separation, and occupation in the land of their birth. In the spring of 2022, I arrived there as an American student with a passport, and began this project in hopes of conveying their perspective. I imagined that bringing images and words to my peers from people most directly affected might humanize and clarify the impact of the status quo in Palestine and Israel. I focused on individuals, artists, activists, and human rights groups, especially those who have been smeared or silenced. I looked to illuminate–for myself, my peers, and other Americans–what Palestinians had to say about life at present, the COVID pandemic, their fears and hopes for the future, and what they wanted Americans in particular to know.
While working to make these images, I was lucky to meet and speak with Palestinians in cities around the West Bank as well as in Jerusalem القدس, Haifa, and Jaffa. In talking, eating, drinking, and living with Palestinians, I was struck by the joy, warmth, and always-present acknowledgement of abiding collective pain that I encountered. It was a privilege to sit down with the heads of organizations I had read about in the news, to be let into mosques, churches, workshops, homes, and factories of artists and artisans, and above all, to be trusted and shared with: an honor that remained at the front of my mind every step I traveled.
