Rula Halawani: Confused Memories, a Project in Progress

Working as a photographer in a political environment, her work demonstrates a strong relationship between art and politics.

Rula Halawani, Untitled, For My Father (2015). Courtesy of the artist and Ayyam Gallery.

Rula Halawani, Untitled, For My Father (2015). Courtesy of the artist and Ayyam Gallery.

With text by Basak Senova, curator and designer.

“In the summer of 2013 I visited the north of Palestine with my family for the first time since high school. We went to Ras al Naqura next to the Lebanese border, which was one of my favorite places in Palestine as a child,” Halawani reminisces “I stood on top of the hill looking down on the Mediterranean Sea and was shocked at how different it was I could not find my memories of his place. Childhood scenes of the pure sand merging with a sea that seemed to hug the blue skies were not there anymore. The landscape of Palestine that I grew up with is gone.” In this project I’m curating images that symbolize the distorted scene of the traditional landscape of Palestine; I went back to the places I loved during my childhood and photographed what they look like now.

Rula Halawani’s current photography series, For My Father, displays dreamlike landscape of Palestine, with extracted memories from her childhood.

The large-scale photographs, first shown as a ‘project in process, were part of the Jerusalem Show VII; Fractures The exhibition was held in an abandoned venue, Hammam Sitna Mariam, during the Qalandiya Biennial (2014), where visitors followed a map around the Old city to find the location.

Her documentary photographs depict aspects of Palestinian life and have been widely exhibited in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the USA

Halawani earned her BA in photography from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada before moving to London to complete her MA in photographic Studies at the University of Westminster. As Founder and director of the photographic Unit at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Halawani introduced the first academic training program of its kind in Palestine.

Her art was included in the 2003 and 2005 Sharjah Biennials, the 2007 Thessaloniki Biennial, the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, the Mori Art Museum of Fine Arts (2013), the Houston Fotofest (2014), Jerusalem Show VII: Fractures (2014), and a solo show in London at the Selma Feriani Gallery (2013). Retrospectives of her work have been shown at the Le Botanique, Brussels (2008) and the Al Hosh Gallery, Jerusalem (2009). Halawani lives and works in Jerusalem. 

Her work is included in museum collections such as London’s British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Khalid Shoman Foundation Darat Al Funun in Jordan.

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