A poster of Yasser Arafat, in full salute, towers in a poster on the graffiti-covered wall behind her, his strong gesture echoed by a small, torn photograph of Saddam Hussein, arm raised violently into the air, stuck to a crumbling concrete pillar to her right. In the distance, to her left, a small boy wrestles with a hosepipe while a woman emerges from the shadows of a doorway behind him.
The face of the young girl, in semi profile, is bathed in light, as stark shadows envelope the left hand side of her head and seep from the pillar that shades her. This is an ominous image that shows the silent young girl mired in her surroundings; the towering political leader behind her, the deep dark shadows seeping towards her and the narrow passage that stretches away behind her, at the end of which is a dark, hollow doorway.
It is a haunting photograph of the complex web of life in Lebanon's twelve Palestinian refugee camps. Acutely observed, it is a visual narrative that explores the paradox for many Palestinians living in Lebanon; the cacophony of hard realities that Palestinian children, adults and elderly have to grapple with as it plays out within the confines of a world that is, in effect, sealed off from the context in which it resides. This is a maturely observed and unaffected snapshot of a normal day in Beirut's Shatila camp.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact is that the photographer is twelve years old. Rana Louay Abdallah is one of 500 Palestinian children, between the ages of six and twelve, selected by Zakira: The Image Festival Association to photograph the environments they live in and to capture moments from the lives they lead as children in exile.
Zakira, a non-governmental organization that aims to promote cultural awareness and understanding through photography and the visual arts, has staged a superb exhibition in Lahza, its debut show.
Lahza marries concept and execution with subtlety and skill. The disposable cameras yield grainy, mottled images that heighten the sincerity each child has imbued his or her photographs with. To ask children to photograph moments from the lives they lead is to strip away the rhetoric and politics that color much of the outside view of the conditions they live and the lives they lead. The effect is that the show becomes a visual diary of sorts, starkly honest and seemingly untainted by ulterior motives.
Some photographs do suggest the influence of an adult hand in the background, but even in these the subjects override attempts at staging; two boys grapple with a gun that points directly towards the spectator, while behind them another, holding a plastic brush with bright pink bristles, looks vacantly away, a lone, distracted torchbearer of sorts. The result is a strange image that encapsulates the eclectic and erratic nature of the lives they lead within the walls of the camps.
Of the thirteen thousand images taken by the young photographers, seventy two form the body of the exhibition at Hamra's Masrah al Madina, with and additional seventy included in the accompanying book.
The breadth of subjects captured here is huge; children are the dominant subject matter but mothers, fathers and the elderly are captured with stark spontaneity that reveals their characters and preoccupations as refugees in a country that is, at best, an uneasy host. An elderly shoemaker, a table of assorted shoes next to him, stares directly at the camera, bottom lip curled under the top as though interrupted in the process of some stream of thought or the intricacies of a routine task.
In many ways, this collection shows photography at its purest. These are moments captured, for the most part un-staged, of a colorful cast going about its daily business. Shapes, gestures and structures emerge to create engaging narratives that are as open-ended as they are moments frozen in time. The opening photographs show groups of boys around a makeshift, open-air swimming pool. The composition is superbly judged; the two boys in the foreground, their backs to the viewer, draw the spectator in to the human pyramid of boys beyond, in preparation for the plunge into the small, gene pool beneath.
For its first outing, Zakira has created an accomplished exhibition, which, as well as showcasing some exceptional photographs, offers a timely look at life for those still in exile, six decades after their nabka.
Tags: Arts, Exhibit, Hamra, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian Refugee Camps, Photography, Review, Saddam Hussein
