The Jordan Times
Sept 24 2011
Palestine before the occupation
By Ica Wahbeh
AMMAN – Taking the viewer back in time, 116 photographs lining the
walls of Cairo Amman Bank Art Gallery make up a chronicle of a people
and a place `before Al Nakba’.
Titled `Palestine Remembers’, the exhibition presents but a fraction
of the over 2,500 snapshots taken by Palestinian Armenian Elia
Kahvedjian (1910-1999), some with references as old as 1860.
Urban and rural life, customs and costumes, landscape and
architecture, ordinary people and historic personalities are
immortalised in his black and white photos, testimony to the social,
economic and political situation in Palestine before the occupation.
A keen eye for beauty and detail must have guided this artist orphaned
at five who started his photographic career at 14, for his are truly
captivating pictures. They present an idyllic, bucolic lifestyle, but
also some breathtaking views of Jerusalem – this quintessential
metropolis with an unmistakable skyline over which wars were fought,
shattering the peace for which it is named – Jaffa and Haifa, Jericho,
Ramallah, Nablus, and even Wadi Rum and Aqaba.
And so, from farmers ploughing their field with the help of oxen or
sifting grain – to be taken later to a windmill like the one on `King
George Avenue’ (1928) – to bread makers, to railways workers and
illustrious personalities – Emir Abdullah, Col. Lawrence, Churchill –
the viewer has the chance to witness a colourful, multi-faceted
society, to see people whose existence seems to followed its set
course in the way their predecessors’ had.
Going deeper into detail, the photographs capture the life of city
people, peasants, shepherds and bedouins, professions – baker, farmer,
vendor, teacher, locomotive mechanic, caravan tradesmen, fishermen,
statesmen – document for posterity a way of living and of making a
living, peaceful times that will, few decades later, be visited by
tragedy.
Whether proudly posing in their finery, like the Ramallah woman in her
embroidered dress, (1940) or exhibiting their adornments (beads,
necklaces, pendants, embellished headdress over pleated hair and even
a nose ring), like `The proud bedouin woman’ staring defiantly to the
lens in 1931, whether captured performing their day-to-day activities
– wool spinners (both men and women), barber, librarian, policemen,
harvesters – the people in Kahvedjian’s snapshots give a glimpse into
a once tranquil life untroubled by man’s cruelty.
A shepherd and his grazing sheep are profiled in Jericho against a
mountain range behind which the sun is setting (1940). In 1930, a
`caravan on Mt. of Olives’ sends the viewer to the days of 1001 nights
and in 1924, a cloudy sky over Jerusalem serves as background for the
domes of mosques and spires of churches, a symbolic reminder of
coexistence and tolerance.
Olive trees as old as time, trunks thick, gnarled, bent by winds and
artistically projected against dramatic skies, often take pride of
place in Kahvedjian’s photos. A recurrent subject matter is the Dome
of the Rock, close up or distant, always imposing and majestic, iconic
for the landscape of the city of peace.
Narrow cobblestone streets in Jerusalem are shaded by vaulted
gangways. The Christian, Armenian and Mughrabi quarters are bustling
with people, women carrying heavily laden trays on their heads and
vendors waiting for clients by the doors of their shops.
The Damascus, Zion (Nabi Dahoud), Jaffa and Herod gates of Jerusalem
show signs of intense activity, horse-drawn carriages and hawkers
peddling their wares, while the streets of cotton and of chains point
to guilds as old as time plying their trades.
Picking olives, harvesting crops, getting ready to take to the sea to
fish, having the future told by a fortune teller, dancing to the sound
of a tambourine (like the gypsy girl with an engaging smile),
attending class (like the five girls sensibly seated on low settees,
listening to their male teacher), policing vast expanses on horse or
camel back, eating hummus or simply playing `sijeh’ (a strategy game
utilising black and white stones), people peacefully go about their
daily life, with no inkling of the tragedy that is going to befall
them.
Their activities show things set in their way, routine and tradition,
occupations inherited over generations, unmistakably refuting the
brazen `country without people for a people without country’ Zionist
slogan.
Indicators of more `modern’ activity are also caught on film by the
prolific photographer.
A steamroller on Hebron Road attracts quite a crowd in 1914 and
`Inside Jaffa Gate’ (1900), a Deutsche Palestina Bank sign keeps
company to one reading `Assad C. Kayat’ and to a `Magasin oriental`
belonging to Andre Terzis & fils.
The hubble bubble, oh so in vogue, was smoked in coffee houses in
Jerusalem in 1915, Gaza had palm trees towering over houses in 1924
and the sun rises over a fishing boat in Haifa in 1927.
Cigarette in hand, an elderly bedouin woman is `waiting at the clinic’
with, presumably, her daughter and granddaughter (1934) and a `bedouin
warrior’ in Jericho (1914) poses on his horse with a long lance for
weapon. Seeing people racing horses, cooking shishbarak, grazing
camels, baking bread or watching the Graf Zeppelin fly over Jerusalem,
seeing the Arab Legion parade in May 25, 1946, or Emir Abdullah with
Sir Herbert and Col. Lawrence in 1921 gives the viewer the privilege
of witnessing both run-of-the-mill and momentous instances in people’s
lives in Palestine.
The quality of the photographs is stunning, disproving, curator
Mohammad Jaloos says, the mistaken belief that that the age long past
lacked in technique and technology. In these images, `however, we see
how monochrome pictures that are supported by considerable skill in
manual printing surpass all the technology we have amassed in the
digital age. The method gives a complete depiction, one created with a
loving heart that is deeply connected to place and time’.
The photographs can be viewed until October 19.
photo: Work by Elia Kahvedjian on display at the `Palestine Remembers’
exhibition at the Cairo Amman Bank Art Gallery until October 19 (Photo
courtesy of the Cairo Amman Bank Art Gallery)
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