Ahlam Shibli
Trackers
14 July – 23 September 2006
Private view, 13 July, 6.30 – 8.30pm

      

Ahlam Shibli (born 1970, Palestine) will be presenting for the first time in London her recent work, Trackers (2005), which consists of 85 photographs taken over several months which document the everyday life of young Palestinians volunteering in the Israeli army ‘Tracker Units’.  These units were created by the Israeli Defence Forces specifically for the Palestinians of Bedouin descent who are trained to become trackers and are deployed in the occupied Palestinian territories at the borders of Israel .  Most of them seek service in the Israeli army as their single opportunity to acquire financial remuneration and social standing.  Shibli’s work is a documentation of the contemporary living conditions of the Palestinian population living under Israeli rule, focusing on the basic and non-heroic elements of the soldiers’ lives.  We do not see them involved in military fighting but in training and participating in the mundane routine of their camp, attempting to construct a better life, even if that means cutting themselves off from their own society.

Alongside these images are those of the villages from where the trackers have come and to where they will return: men sitting amidst their families, the sites of local clubs, decaying or destroyed houses, cemeteries in which are the graves of those who died fighting against the State of Israel besides those who fought on behalf of it. 

Working with black and white and colour photographs, distanced camera positions and intimate close-ups, Shibli’s work brings the history of Palestinian photography from the early pioneers – Khalil R‘ad to Issa Sawabini and Daoud Sabounki – who laid the foundations for the national language of this medium. Their photographs documented continuities whereas Shibli’s intend to narrate discontinuities, irreconcilable changes and marginal cultures.  There is a powerful message in her work that speaks of how her people have been robbed of their past and are now being robbed of what it is that once made them a part of their land.



Ahlam Shibli (born 1970, Palestine ) has participated in several major international exhibitions and institutions. Recent exhibitions include Trackers at Kunsthalle Basel (2006), Switzerland and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, Lost Time at Ikon Gallery (2003), Birmingham .  In 2005 she showed her work in important group exhibitions such as the 9th Istanbul Biennial ( Turkey ), T1 Turin Triennial ( Turin ), and in 2004 Non-Sect/Radical: Contemporary Photography III at Yokohama Museum of Art ( Japan ). Forthcoming exhibitions include the 27th Bienal de São Paulo ( Brazil ), the 2006 Busan Biennial ( Korea ) and the 2006 Seville Biennial ( Spain ). She received a BA degree from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem , and a MFA degree in Cinema and Television from Tel Aviv University .



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