Images from
the series: Negative Incursion, 2002, B/W negative print ,34 3/8" x
48"
Negative
Incursion
"Ten years
ago when the peace process first started, I like many other Palestinians was
ready to give peace a chance. As the peace process developed, the events that
followed filled me with worry: the worry of losing my city, Jerusalem, and the
right of exiled Palestinians to return to their home land. The days went by and
in my eyes things only got worse: more of the land was taken; more Israeli
settlements appeared on Palestinian land, more killings.
On the 28th of
March 2002 I was in Ramallah when the major Israeli Incursion happened, I was
shocked; everything around me looked so different. Every street and square I
visited was dark and empty; no one was in the streets that day except the
Israeli army and its tanks. I felt depressed and cold. The only Palestinian I
met on the road that day was an old man. He was shot dead. I never knew his
name, but I had seen him walking around those same streets before. That night I
could not take away his face from my memory, and many questions without answers
rushed inside my head. It was that night that my hopes for peace died."
Rula
Halawani
Rula
Halawani
Born 1964, East Jerusalem.
Education. MFA in photographic
studies, university of Westminster, UK
B.A. Advanced Degree in Photography,
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Lives in Jerusalem.