INTRO FOR a PHOTO ESSAY of various Palestinian creatives in nyc, oCTOBER 2022

The modern Palestinian identity is often described by a set of stereotypes born from conditions out of our control. As we move through the world, our perceived identity tends to precede us, and so, defining our individual existence as something more expansive and complex than these implied boundaries of identity becomes an ongoing act of resistance.

Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and ’48 experience life within the boundaries defined by the infrastructures designed to constrict what is possible. Still, there are many who exemplify unimaginable creativity, bravery, and embodied resistance by simply being.

Imagine an arid landscape, a classic image of the Earth in drought, the fissures left behind as evaporation carried away all the moisture. Now imagine introducing water to this image, a baraka: as the liquid slips into the negative spaces, it carries nourishment, transforming the dust particles through the forging of new bonds, into a fluid, viscous state, one of mud, clay, potential and creation. In this world designed to separate us from ourselves and one another, this is what the work to reconnect and fill the gaps between our worlds looks and moves like. Amorphous, nebulous and adaptive. And in a city like New York, where diversity and individual mythologies are worn as adornments or badges of pride, the possibility for creation is boundless.

This group of Palestinian American minds and makers may share the common condition of breakage that comes with being a Palestinian living in the diaspora, but this diverse group have also cultivated unique manifestations of expression: producers, activists, intellectuals, podcasters, models, photographers, filmmakers, and fine artists, while continuing to connect to Palestine and nurture their relationship with it, forming new bonds, filling the cracks, creating wholeness – resisting and refusing to be defined by others’ ideas of what it means to be Palestinian.