Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Images Above: © Mike Mainenti
Time lists "Occupied Pleasures" as one of the best photo books of 2015. On December 1 its author, Tanya Habjouqa, made a rare appearance in New York at the Half King Photo Series to celebrate its launch. In her project, Tanya documents many of the ludicrous (i.e., normal) moments of everyday life that the 47-year occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem has created. Copies of Occupied Pleasures published by FotoEvidence, will be available for sale, and Tanya will screen a slideshow about the project. Also on hand to take part in the discussion will be photographers Peter Van Agtmael and Eric Gottesman.
TANYA HABJOUQA’s photographs focus on gender, social, and human rights issues in the Middle East. She approaches her subjects with sensitivity but also with an eye for the absurd. In 2014, the series Occupied Pleasures garnered Tanya a World Press Award. She is a founding member of Rawiya photo collective, the first all-female photo collective of the Middle East. Her work has been widely exhibited, and her series "Women of Gaza" was acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Art in 2013 and in private collections. She is represented by East Wing, in Doha, Qatar. Tanya is based in East Jerusalem.
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
“Voice of the Arab East”
Title of a broken record found on ground in a West Bank .
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Three little boys splash around in a plastic swimming pool set up under an olive tree in the West Bank, where water flows freely for Israeli settlers but in limited quantities for Palestinians in Kufr Ni`ma.
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Lidia Rimawi places new born Majid on her couch. He was conceived through artificial insemination with her husband's sperm, smuggled out of an Israeli jail.
Since 1967, roughly 40% of the Palestinian male population has been imprisoned by Israel at one point in time.
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Little girl at a Gazan wedding celebration takes a quiet moment in the wedding hall, before the bride comes to sit on the “throne.”
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Young women, fully dressed in “jilbab,” exercise in a gym in Gaza. The women say they cover at the gym because they have no privacy in the public sphere due to limited economic options. They say they cannot afford private gyms and they’re tired of being stuck at home.
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
After grueling traffic at the Qalandia checkpoint, a young man enjoys a cigarette in his car as traffic finally clears on the last evening of Ramadan. He is bringing home a sheep for the upcoming Eid celebration.
Image Above: © Tanya Habjouqa / Courtesy of the artist.
Sarah Khawajah takes a quiet moment to herself in a car before entering the wedding hall for her West Bank wedding celebration.