In Memory of Tomorrow | Mohammad Harb

Picture of passers-by in Souq Al-Zawiya - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets

Portrait of a vendor in the market (souk) of al-Shati Refugee Camp - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets

A vendor preparing vegetables to sell - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets

Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets

A tradesman counting his money in Souq al-Zawiya - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s markets

Two people working in a popular food restaurant in the refugee camp - Scenes from daily life in Gaza’s restaurants

A child selling coffee on the street next to the sea - Scenes from the daily life of child street vendors in Gaza

A child selling coffee from a stand on the street adjacent to the sea - Scenes from the daily life of child street vendors in Gaza

A child selling coffee on the street close to the sea - Scenes from the daily life of child street vendors in Gaza

A coffee vendor in the park - Scenes from the daily life of vendors in Gaza

A teacher measuring students’ temperature levels upon their arrival to school - Scenes from the daily life of students in Gaza

Students wearing masks in their schoolyard - Scenes from the daily life of students in Gaza

Students wearing masks in their schoolyard during the morning queue - Scenes from the daily life of students in Gaza

Students wearing masks in their classrooms - Scenes from the daily life of students in Gaza

Family members studying after returning from school - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Family members looking out the home window after returning from schoo - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Family members looking out the home window after returning from school - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Family members praying with relatives after returning from school - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

My mother reading the Quran while wearing a mask - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Family members drawing at home - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Family members at home showing paintings related to the coronavirus - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

A child trying to sneak out of the house to play outdoors while under quarantine - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

A child at home trying to sleep while wearing a mask during the quarantine - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

A child at home under quarantine - Scenes from the daily life of my family in our Gaza home

Their lives inside a cage during the quarantine - Scenes from my family under quarantine in Gaza

Project's Concept

Coronagraphy (The Cage)

Coronography is a research-based photographic project to document the social aspects of the ordeal caused by COVID-19. This was done by witnessing people’s living conditions with my cameras. I first chose my household as a model to monitor the daily practices of Gazan families living under tight quarantine restrictions.

The pandemic, precautionary measures and forced closures imposed a new reality on the ground. In this respect, my house became my world, which I explored more thoroughly. In fact, the scenes of my family’s “normal” daily routine became events worth dwelling upon and reflecting through my camera lens.

This experience began with my project’s “visual narration” structure to document our daily lives and my children’s unusual experience of quarantine. Like other children and adults, our lives became confined to a small cage from which we watch the outside world through screens and windows!

Although these closures were considered somewhat strange and unfamiliar for us, the residents of Gaza were much more prepared and accustomed to this kind of lifestyle due to living under siege for a long time. However, what stood out in this case was that the world was in the siege with us. The phrase “stay at home!” constituted the new order of compulsory confinement, birds without wings, locked inside cages

In the beginning, depression, sadness and doubt were observed in the persons wearing masks. But the vision became clearer as we grew accustomed to living with this “difficult guest” (so to speak) and had to adapt to a pandemic that suffocated our daily lives.

As a witness to this ordeal, I felt the dire need to chase after these moments and document them elaborately. The process of monitoring this unusual reality in Gaza and recording the details of my family’s quarantine were conducted through my daily experiences and documentation. In this respect, I adopted a research approach that reflects life through spontaneous picture-taking.

I had previously been accustomed to searching for events and capturing them with my lens from “the larger cage.” However, the vision was different this time. Although I did not initially plan to have myself and my family be the focus of this series, I documented the daily events, details and traits of my family at home. These were narrated and arranged as a disconnected film, while disregarding storyboarding and a logical sequence of events to highlight the absurdity of the coronavirus period characterised by isolation, quarantine and siege.

Artist Bio

Mohammad Harb

Mohammad Harb was born in Gaza, Palestine. He graduated from the faculty of fine arts at an-Najjah University in 2001. He also graduated from École Supérieure des Arts Visuels de Marrakech, where he specialised in the digital arts, between 2011 and 2015. His work focusses on contemporary visual arts, documentaries, video art and photography. Harb has worked as a visual fine artist since 1998. He has taken part in several art exhibitions, workshops and contemporary visual art projects and so forth.

His documentary, The Deportation Room, was shown in the Palestinian Pavilion at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2019.

He is the founder and director of the International Video Art Festival—Gaza, now in its third year. He won numerous production grants to implement several contemporary visual art projects inside and outside Palestine. He worked as a trainer for visual arts at Ibn Zohr University, Morocco, between 2013 and 2014. He also worked for over 10 years as both director and artistic director at Media and Arts in Gaza, and participated in several training programs in the digital and visual arts fields in Palestine, Morocco and Qatar. He was also the artistic director in many documentary projects and also worked as a trainer and producer with several local and international organisations.

Furthermore, Harb is an acclaimed expert in visual and video arts and has won several awards in these fields. He worked as a freelance photographer and won the bronze and silver awards at the Arab-European Festival in Germany 2008–2009, participated in the Eye on the Arab Spring Festival in Italy and participated in many art experimentation projects, exhibitions and workshops. Since 2000, his work was shown in over 11 solo exhibitions and other joint exhibitions in several countries. Harb has also worked on several photography projects.