The Journal

Gaza, Humanitarian truce, 28 November 2023. Mohammed Salem is a Palestinian photojournalist based in the Gaza Strip. He holds a degree in media studies from Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Mohammed has worked with Reuters since 2003, mainly covering the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. He received the Dubai Press Club Media Award, won the International Press Photo Competition in China in 2004 and was awarded second prize in Spot News at the World Press Photo Competition in 2010. His latest photos of the Gaza Strip in October 2023 have been selected by Reuters as one of the "best press photographs of 2023". "A picture should not be taken just with the eye; it should have a meaning in the heart" - Mohammed Salem.

"A boy eating watermelon", Adam Rouhana “There are a number of things that come to mind when I look at this image and, honestly, it’s about the boy… It’s sort of like he’s making love to the watermelon, right? That is what it looks like. So, it’s this idea, I guess, of a passion for the land and his own relationship with the land. You can see he’s in this kind of olive grove and the earth is around him." N.B. The watermelon is a symbol of Palestine. Adam Rouhana is a young Palestinian photographer who graduated from Oxford. He grew up in Boston. Each year, he returns to his homeland with his camera, and focuses on Palestinian youth, which represents half the population. A soldier, a fence, a football pitch, but also laughter, somersaults on the beach and back to school moments. The young photographer, who plans his first exhibition with curators Zainab Hasoon and Sara bin Safwan at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, captures these everyday infrastructures, characters and emotions of Palestine. He claims the "permission to narrate" developed by Edward Saïd - in other words, the commitment to sharing an individual rather than a collective story, not dictated by an oppressive regime or locked into a given prism such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Adam Rouhana therefore offers new perspectives and new narratives of Palestine. ‘Instead of reproducing the representations of occupied Palestine that are so ubiquitous and so obvious, I was able to capture the quieter moments and try to work to create new representations of Palestine’ – Adam Rouhana

"Climbing walls", Khaled Hourani Born in Hebron, he is an artist, writer, commentator, curator, and a critical voice in Palestine. Operating within a socially and politically constrained system, Hourani conveys his awareness of the nuances and vagaries that permeate different aspects of social encounters in Palestine. In his pivotal 2011 project ‘Picasso in Palestine’, Hourani borrowed Picasso’s ‘Buste de Femme’ from the Van Abbemuseum in The Netherlands, to display it in Ramallah. The symbol was powerful knowing the piece was painted during WW2. What was already an unusual lending process turned into a political quagmire considering that Palestine was not - and still isn’t - internationally recognised as a state, therefore making it impossible to insure the piece. The painting had to be militarily guarded: no insurance company took the risk. Picasso’s painting was exhibited in a specific room, always with two guards. This photograph was taken at the time, and has since been exhibited multiple times, also under surveillance. A mise en abyme revealing the complexity and constant struggle of a life under occupation.

"Kiss of Freedom", Rami Kanso Rami Kanso is a Lebanese-Slovak graphic designer, motion designer and visual artist based in Doha. He currently works for Alaraby TV. Rami combines his work in broadcasting with his passion for creative animation. He was head of visuals for the West End music production "Umm Kulthum: The Golden Era", which premiered at the London Palladium in March 2020. He also co-produced and co-directed a series of award-winning poetry videos with his wife, Dana Dajani. In October 2019, Rami's drawing for the Lebanese revolution became a viral icon of the resistance movement. His art blends calligraphy, collage, texture work, typography and symbolism to express contemporary Arab identity.

"Women sleeping" by Malak Mattar "Being a feminist is not about hating men; it's about believing that men and women don't have to compete with each other, but that they complement each other. This harmony can exist between two genders when there is equality and recognition of each other's roles and abilities, without degrading anyone's status." Malak Matar was born in 1999 in the Gaza Strip. She started painting in 2014 to escape the aggression and violence she and her family experienced daily while living in the Gaza Strip. Her first solo exhibition, which she organised a year later at the age of fifteen, enabled her to forge links with international journalists and gain recognition for her work on social networks. After winning the distinction of best high school student in the Gaza Strip (and second best in the whole of Palestine), Malak Matar left Gaza in 2017 to study political science in Turkey. She is publishing a bilingual Arabic-English children's book, "Grandma's Bird", about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with writings and drawings that describe her own experience.

"Palest*n*ans: a story of displacement and pain. For decades, the world has been a silent witness to their displacement, the bombing of their refuge and the loss of loved ones. Today, with no access to food, water or medicine, they are faced with the agonising decision to leave the land they hold dear, with the uncertainty of their return, or quite simply, to die. Their story is part of the wider story of refugees around the world. The location of this work has not been added to avoid the shadowbanning I have faced in recent days." - statement by Egyptian visual artist and graphic designer Hassan Ragab, about the tragedy that Gaza goes through today, in front of everyone's eyes. The word 'Palestinians' has had several letters removed to avoid the censorship currently rampant on social networks. Hassan Ragab was trained as an architect and now lives in Southern California. Between design, furniture renovation, installations and graphic design, he participates in the development of digital art and in particular the use of Artificial Intelligence in this field.

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Untitled 2 (Self Portrait Series), 2002-03. Courtesy The Third Line, Dubai Al-Ghoussein was born in Kuwait to a family of Palestinian exiles. A photographer, photojournalist and professor of visual arts at New York University in Abu Dhabi, he has documented Arab history and culture, and remains renowned for his work on Palestinian identity. In 2002 he began his Self-Portrait series, large format photographs capturing the artist wearing a keffiyeh and staring out to sea, or towards an aeroplane, ship, or other symbol of travel. In a 2004 interview, Al-Ghoussein recalled how the previous year Jordanian police detained him for 22 hours during a shoot in front of the Dead Sea. The police asked ‘What was I doing, who was I, why was I wearing the Palestinian scarf, why that particular scarf – not the red scarf or the other type of black scarf? And it just made me realize how charged that scarf was. And how much, even in the Middle East, it has become almost a symbol of terrorism. I guess that just made me realize it’s not just a symbol in the West, it’s become a symbol in the Middle East as well.’ His works are in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Smithsonian, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Museum, the Royal Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, Mathaf Museum, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah Art Foundation, Mori Art Museum, ...

Photography by Hanane El Ouardani, Casablanca, 2022 The work of Moroccan-Dutch photographer Hanane El Ouardani revolves around notions of representation and identity. She strives to create subjective documentary projects that, while based on personal narratives, have a universal appeal. In the course of her studies and in reflecting on her own identity, Hanane El Ouardani developed a strong affinity with her parents' birthplace, the town of Nador. Born in 1994 and holder of a BA in Photography and Design from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Hanane El Ouardani has exhibited her work at Paris Photo, Foto Tallinn, Art Rotterdam 2020 and Unseen.

Mashael Alsaie, "Shaar Banat," 2018. Film Photography Mashael Alsaie's artistic practice combines photography and video. This 2018 work is part of a series entitled "Shaar Banat" (women's hair), and it is quite representative of the topics she tackles, such as femininity, rituals and social representation. Today, she deals with Bahraini mythology and explores its influence on the collective awareness. As a Bahraini artist, she took part in several collective exhibitions at Misk, Riyadh (2020), PS122, New York (2019), and the annual Bahrain Fine Arts Festival (2020). She recently finished a residency at Residency Unlimited in Brooklyn, New York, and she is a member of the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation (2021).

"Ashraf", "Body Talks" series, 2018, Héla Ammar. "Body Talks" is the portrait of a generation of Tunisian activists campaigning for individual freedoms and LGBT rights in particular. The artist has chosen to hide the faces of the participants, to preserve their identities, and representing them as post-revolutionary icons. Covering the heads of her seven models - bloggers, journalists and artists - with brightly coloured floral scarves known as "Hindiya", the artist defies gender categories, customary identities and prevailing taboos about the body. "Here, I have asked them to renounce the notoriety that their faces and identities convey, and to let their bodies tell their own stories. Together, they give a glimpse of what is at play in a society like ours. Together, they form a vibrant picture of a generation on edge, whose language defies the prejudices of time and space" - Héla Ammar. Born in Tunis, Héla Ammar is a visual artist, Doctor of Law and academic. Her photographic work questions notions of memory and identity, beyond̀ social, political and religious references and conventions. The artist highlights memory through the archive. She draws inspiration from her daily life to bring her vision to bear on subjects such as the female image and identity in Mediterranean Arab cultures.