Talk: Palestine through women's eyes: a work of love and resistance

'Om, (mother) is a photo series by Barbara Debeuckelaere in collaboration with the women of 8 Palestinian families in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, one of the most explosive places on the West bank.

Using small analog devices, nearly 50 women took images of their surroundings and homes last September, just before the violence erupted in Gaza. Hebron and specifically Tel Rumeida is a kind of microcosm of the West Bank, home to some of the most radical settlers. Heavy physical and verbal violence against the Palestinian population are commonplace and not punished. A third of the houses are empty.

The camera is the only weapon for Palestinians to show the outside world what is happening. On social media, we see mostly men suffering or just confronting the violence of settlers and soldiers. By creating and remaining a loving home in this toxic climate, women are also committing the ultimate act of resistance. Despite the occupation, the checkpoints, the harassment, the violence, the threats, the humiliations.

Debeuckelaere and the women worked entirely analogously, precisely because the digital camera in this context is the camera of the press, the outside world, politics, violence, the man.The analogue, the blur, the deep colors, the flecks of light and mistakes, everything refers to the atmosphere of a warm home. In his text for the book, Adam Broomberg calls the series a benevolent whisper against the aggression of the occupation. 'OM' is a collective work, a work of love and resistance.

During this book presentation, Barbara Debeuckelaere will be joined by Aysha and Sundos Azza, two Palestinian women from Tel Rumeida who are members of the activist collective Youth Against Settlements. They talk about their experience of the daily violence of the occupation and Israeli settlements in their neighborhood.