Photos from the West Bank

I can't remember the first time I heard Matt talk about his experiences on the West Bank. All I know is that they were hard for me to visualise. I'm a visual person. He came to our book group in September and we discussed the graphic novel (a book told in drawn photos) Palestine by Joe Sacco which helped some. However, I still had no idea what it looked like or how it might feel or smell to be there. These things matter to me when I think about other people's experiences and am trying to understand and empathise about what they are going through.

When we were talking about Sue Beardon coming to talk at the Quaker Meeting House this Tuesday (Feb 15th at 7:00, please note that I initially made a mistake - oh no! - I posted this incorrectly as 7:15, if you come a whole 15 minutes late you may miss tea and the introduction and crucial opening explanations and all sorts of important stuff and the best seats but still come if that's the best you can do :-) ), I asked him if there were any photos he might recommend. He showed me some photos of graffiti. He lead me into a whole world of Palestinian Flickr graffiti art. He started me off on some great Banksy stuff but if you're interested in looking for yourself, all you have to do is go to Flickr and search (click on this link for a number of groups that have specific photos related to Palestine).

Here were a couple favourites I found that immediately conveyed a great sense of place and space:

Photo Credit: Daniela Galazzo Limbo, Bethlehem (West Bank, Palestinian Occupied Territories), Check Point



Photo Credit: Daniela Galazzo Alba Vaga, Bethlehem (West Bank, Palestinian Occupied Territories), Check Point