Our Jerusalem
Digital color photography (2025)
Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle PhotoRag Ultra Smooth paper
Museum glass and frame. Diptych, each panel 40 × 60 cm
In the first panel of this diptych, we see ten-year-olds Arita, Arbana, Alva, and Selin reading contemporary newspaper reports about the Israeli military’s attack on the Ship to Gaza in international waters on May 31, 2010 — leaving nine dead and over fifty injured. Alva wears a hat embroidered with the words Our Jerusalem, a gift from award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, known for his reporting from Gaza.
In the second panel the girls have become 24-year-old women. The photograph is taken in the same location, fourteen years later, in September 2024. The surroundings are the same, while details in the image were developed in dialogue with the women based on their reflections on the genocide unfolding in Gaza.
"They are our children" – is one of the most powerful slogans for a Free Palestine. Generations grow up while the occupation continues. The work points to the many affected by the occupation and violence, and to the global and collective trauma created by witnessing it.
