Week 22 - 2020
Tanya Habjouqa, Sabah Abu Ghanem, 14, waits for a wave on a slow surf day, from the series “Occupied Pleasures” 2012. Belongs to the Preus museum collection
Blue bliss
Despite the worst imaginable set of circumstances, such as war and conflict, nature and the energy it carries will prevail; always moving along with us. Seasons will shift, trees will go green and the waves will crash against the beaches. Nature can easily harm us humans, and when things are difficult and disconcerting we try, in our own way, to find new paths for us to tread. Many of us are forced to live during long periods of time marked by incredibly difficult circumstances. How do we relate to life when basic human rights are left unsustained?
In the series Occupied Pleasures photographer Tanya Habjouqua (1975-) explore people's abilities to find joy in difficult situations within the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. The title does not only imply the passive act of being occupied. It also signifies the active choice of occupying oneself with smaller pleasures within an everyday reality consisting of limited movement, uncertainty and violence. Autonomy through small and pleasant moments.
This image is part of Habjouqua’s series. It shows a 14 year old girl, Sabah Abu Ghanem, waiting for a wave. The massive blue coloured sky, the reflections in the sea, as well as her clothes can all be perceived as component parts of her breathing space within a pressured situation. In this place she is in control, and when the right wave hits she can move along the wide ocean roads by means of her surfing board. If the picture narrative had a soundtrack, the tall brown houses in the background would constitute its good rhythm. A “fresh bathing image” for recollection.