Summary
Texas-born Circassian and Jordanian feminist photographer whose project Occupied Pleasures (2015) anchors Kelly’s account of the visual economy of Palestine and the foreclosure of Palestinian joy (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.210-216). Kelly also notes, in the front matter, that the book’s cover art is Habjouqa’s photograph from the series The Sacred Space Oddity (PDF p.5).
Details
- Habjouqa seeks to capture Palestinian pleasure and the humor Palestinians use to make visible and manageable the daily indignities of occupation, working against a “visual narrative of Palestinians” circumscribed to stone-throwing teenagers, refugee camps, mourning mothers and border queues (PDF p.210).
- Her Gaza images include a parkour troupe propelling off buildings damaged by Israeli incursions, a toy store van on Gaza’s beach highway, a woman cuddling lion cubs born in the Rafah Zoo, and a woman without a travel permit walking an underground tunnel to a party in Egypt clutching a bouquet of flowers (PDF p.213-216).
- Kelly: Habjouqa is “telling the same story” of dispossession and siege, in “another way”, one not tethered to generating sympathy and outrage (PDF p.213).
Related pages
Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, Gaza, Solidarity Tourism, Rafeef Ziadah