Review: Raed Bawayeh ID92559661

The impetus for Raed Bawayeh's haunting and penetrating photographic series comes from his experience ofimprisonment. He, like his subjects were imprisoned for not having legal paperwork to be in Jerusalem and Israel. Bawayeh shared an intimate relationship with the individuals in his photographs, in discussion he expresses how he has lived with the men and their families, shared their meals, their stories and their lives.

In Bawayeh photographs there is incredible attention to detail, accompanied by sensitivity to the most rudimentary and inconsequential spaces and textures of everyday life.The families and men in his photographs live in poor and meager conditions, the pride and necessity of these elements are all expressed through his photographs. In many images, Bawayeh uses stark contrasts of light and dark, which brings to the forefront the circumstances of the subject, their isolation and hardship. These are forgotten people, the unknown prisoners and workers, who are reduced to an ID number, men whose manual labour is bought by the day. We see them traversing the open landscape and hills of Palestine on unmarked paths and routes, hooded, concealing themselves for fear of identificationand capture. Again and again the artists brings to the foreground the somber reality of their existence.

Bawayeh represents their harsh living conditions while at the same time highlights how they maintain a sense and space of their individuality, whether it is through the small corners of privacy or through their clothing in their cramped communal living environment. This is where they make their home away from home; it can be as simple as where one hangs one's coat, or the fragment of a mirror which one uses to capture a glimpse of one's reflection. In many ways the photographs show the price men pay for having to be the breadwinners of their families.The portrait of a young man in his underwear is both a representation of masculinity and vulnerability, his face betrays his tiredness, desires and experience of isolation. All the photographer constantly capture and exposes minute details and male vulnerability,as in the image of a young man, whose vest is full of holes and tears. Bawayeh series shows us another world that leaves one uncomfortable and forces us to reflect and remember our own luxuries and daily comforts.

Bawayeh's early series Salom, deals with the experience of the families of whose men are absent working illegally in Israel. Like in his seriesID the photographer provides an intimate portrait of their daily lives and the spaces of the home. He particularly focuses on the experience in this context of children, an incredible sense of their isolation, loneliness, vulnerability and even boredom overwhelms the viewer. Each image is crafted in its composition and its representation of the textures and spaces of poverty. A child sits on mattressless bed, as though imprisoned in this empty space, lost in their own inner thoughts while another peers out from behind a tear in fragmented fabric. In so many images the children express a sense of waiting, longing and emptiness at the same time. It as though they echo the experience of their absent fathers and brothers which have been passed down and imprinted on their subjectivity.

Tina Sherwell, 2005