Project brief:
Giving Peace Faces is a contemporary Photography Portraiture project about peacemaking grassroots organisations in Israel and its neighbouring countries, which provide opportunities for dialogue and non confrontational relationships.
I want to somehow comprehend how people who were born into a conflict where 'the other' has been stereotyped as an evil entity for 60 years are driven to making peace and dialogue happen.
I am portraying people who use their own lives as a tool to implement the changes they believe will make a difference.
I focus on the individuals rather than the organisations they belong to (find out why here).
All the people working for the initiatives I document have in common a few ideas that are simple
but far from naïve:
-they unconditionally reject any form of violence
-they initiate face-to face multicultural and/or inter-religious exchanges (academic exchanges,
sport exchanges, craft exchanges, school exchanges...) either in Israel, the WB or Gaza (not abroad).
-they are grassroots movements, from the people to the people without going through the political
spheres, or sparingly do so
-they are modest in the number of people involved
As opposed to the 'vocal' NGOs present in Israel and the WB, there are many undocumented
communities and organisation that have no communication or marketing strategy, their websites,
when they have one, are bare: their fight is on the ground. They don’t campaign for changes from
above, through governing bodies, but from within.
One example of this is mixed schools, where lessons are taught in Arabic and in Hebrew, and
children participate in activities developing their knowledge of religions and traditions of the
people they will grow up to be neighbours with. Another is mixed villages.
They are hard to find, tricky to get in contact with, but most of the people I managed to reach were
more than happy to be part of the project.
Those are the people and communities I want to portrait, literally.
They are the faces of hope and will for peace not so much as a ‘negative peace’, as the absence of
conflict, but peace as a strive for everyday exchange between people sharing the same land.
Project outcome:
Giving Peace Faces is primarily a contemporary photography portrait project.
I want to finish this project with an equal number of participants from each side ( Jewish Israelis and Palestinians/Palestinians of Israeli Citizenship) ; if the power balance and risks involved of organising dialogue meetings are very different, the strive to implement changes through meeting one another is the same on both sides.
Once the portrait series is complete, a dedicated website in four languages (Arabic, English, French and Hebrew) with portraits and interviews extracts will be created.
After completion of the series and the web portal, a book will be created.
Project's finances:
This project does not involve any financial renumeration for myself nor the people I am photographing, I am pursuing funding for the expenses involved exclusively.
Past Sponsors:
2012/2013: AA2A with Southampton Solent University, in kind sponsorship (no financial aid) consisting in a timed access to the film processing and scanners facilities of the University.
2013: Talent Development with A Space and Southampton City Council, £1000 bursary (used for travel from the UK, travel by public transportation within Israel and the West Bank, purchasing medium format film, and film archiving).
I am currently seeking funding/sponsorship for:
Film (Medium format Fuji film 400H)
Negatives processing, negatives scanning and negatives archiving
Travelling (Car rental and/or public transportation)
Website creation
Translation of web content in Hebrew and Arabic
Skype and mobile calls
