GAZA PHOTO ALBUM

For thirty years, Swedish photographer Kent Klich (b. 1952) has worked in a documentary tradition, earning a reputation for his photo books about Beth, the children in Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Romania, and El Niño. In 2001, he began travelling to Gaza Strip, the conflict-torn Palestine territory that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Through his works, Klich seeks to increase our awareness about life in this geopolitical area and the violation of human rights that take place there.

The project has also led to reflections on the difficulty of portraying human suffering, and his own role as a photographer. The brightly-coloured photo album from Gaza contains pictures of deserted, bombed homes with a sofa and an iron that remain undamaged. Klich has expanded on the project in the video Killing Time (2011) where he has worked with found material related to the conflict in Gaza – personal mobile videos belonging to people who didn’t survive the war 2008–2009.

The series Gaza Photo Album (2009) and the work Killing Time (2011) adds perspective to the current humanitarian disaster in Gaza, where Israeli military action in response to the Islamist Hamas offensive in October 2023 has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. With the fifth war in Gaza in fifteen years, hopes for peace in the region are once again shattered.

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