July

Monday morning fun (and friday night fun, and saturday fun, and…) :

• Portrait gallery updated: check.
• Scanning of all portraits shot in May: check.
• Firecracker application submitted: check (thank's to fellow photographer Léa Habourdin and head of project proof-reading and fellow Japan-lover, Ginny).
• Terry O'Neil Photography Award application submitted: check.
• Audio transcription, translation, book design, social life, weekly run: definitely not checked…yet.

ping pong and dark pits.

A ping pong table has been installed on the 5th floor of Solent University - one of the kind sponsor of Giving Peace Faces.

Even though the scanners I use are on floor 0, it has been very hard to not be tempted by a game or two, especially since some of the Photography Department staff are really, really good players… There's something about tennis table, I find it totally disconnects my brain from the rest of the world, a little bit like a soft sneeze. Very addictive.

Thankfully, nobody was in yesterday, so I had no excuse not to scan. A few more portraits can be seen below. I am hoping to start securing some funding for the development of the project into a multilingual website, exhibition, and book within the next six months.

Step by step.

One major task will also be to think of the relationship between words accompanying the portraits and the photographs. How much do you say, and how do you say it. How do I give what I think I've documented. 
Sometimes, at the back of my head, questions of a more tricky nature start to arise. How much does a portrait tell. Does it say anything at all about the sitter. What can you actually read into a face. What can you read from hands. Could it be that is says strictly nothing?
To document.
I quickly close my eyes and let them fade out. I'm not ready yet. They open a vast pit, I don't know its depth, and I'm scared of falling into it. Last time I did was four years ago.
Maybe I should start to look for someone who is not so afraid of that dark pit, who has found a few lights along the way, and will be happy to enlighten it, with the assurance of someone that has been there and back.

Moshe - one of several facilitators of an interfaiths dialogue program.

Alexandra is the director of a fully bilingual/binational pre-school in Jerusalem,
 everything there is taught in both languages.

Michal has been involved in face-to-face dialogue facilitating for decades.
She studied, specialised and wrote her memoir on dialogue groups

Aziz (more soon).

" This landscape is full of hate ".

© Giving Peace Faces - Fang Gleizes - 2013

With a to do list slowly approaching the length of my street, I have been concentrating on little pleasant things to do, as opposed to face the dreaded monster-sized tasks of this project.

The good thing about Giving Peace Faces being a one (wo)man project is that I, for now, don't have a time limit. I can take 5 years to finish it if I want to. I give it the time it needs. And it needs (and deserve?) a lot of time.

I hope this won't change once I run into more funding (for the website, the translation, the book, etc).

On another note:

A documentary produced by Arte, La Loi du plus Fort (here in French, Law In These Parts) about the military law in the occupied territories, with interesting approaches and comments on the objectivity of a documentary production:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWhcxdDeO2E

I am not sure how it ended up on youtube, it is quite possible that there is a copyright breach here and would definitely encourage you to see a legal copy if available.

Stuck in fifth gear, Film and Interview.

On my very first day on this last May trip, with the very first person I had arranged to meet,
after we took a few pictures and sat down, I turned my mic on for the for the first time.
I had never interviewed someone before.
I asked the first question I had prepared*. The first answer I received was:

'This is a very good question'.

After landing back in the UK, processing the films and scanning some quick contact prints, I scanned my first portrait on Wednesday (three days ago).
When people know themselves thoroughly and know what they stand for, they have a tendency to not 'display' in front of the lens (the word I'm thinking of in French is 'parade').
They just are, with no false modesty or mask. It's very rare.
There is something very honest about how they look at the lens. They let you look at them, they really do, maybe because they have looked there first.
More importantly at this moment in time, there is something in the open, bare, but firm stare of the sitter I happen to scan first, the luck I had with the light that day, that ticked a box in my mind. It confirmed somewhere between my brain and my heart that I was right to persevere with Giving Peace Faces.

Yosre Slamen

As always, working with films proves rewarding but risky.
For all the advantages and precious lucky details I could get, one sitter could officially get an award for the most unlucky sitter I ever had… The film wasn't loaded properly (and I will definitely though shamefully admit this would appear to be my fault more than my very preciously tempered camera's fault...), resulting in a big hole in the only inside shot I have of the poor fellow (due to the processing method). But the four shots we took outside, and I distinctively remember a delicate profile on the blurred, hot street, are simply nowhere to be found. The film is simply blank where it shouldn't.
Not complaining though. I'll just have to meet him again when I go to carry on shooting the series.



In three days I scanned what I thought would keep me busy for the whole months of July August and September, I'm on the ninth film on a total of twenty.
As I also work part time, either I am on fifth gear and this would explain my sudden habit of falling asleep on the parks on the way home from scanning, or I just planned my time a little bit like my aunt plans food for a meal ( way, way too much).



*'Where are your parents and grand-parents from?'

Back from work to work more.

13 days

26 people met, photographed and interviewed

20 films processed cut and archived in 2 hours, less than 10 hours after landing in the UK

£0 spent on accommodation

3 days in Tel Aviv, 5 in Haifa and its surroundings, 4 in East and West Jerusalem, ½ a day near Ashkelon, and 1 in the West Bank

57 audio recordings of interviews

about 50 bus tickets and a handful of taxi receipts

2 unhappy shoulders due to a heavy bag without a hip strap

1 very happy person for not loosing her films and making it there and back, honoured to have met so many inspiring friendly and honest people, and looking forward to the mountain of work lying ahead in the next half year.

Le dessous des cartes.

(In french only)
It's already nine years old, but I find his neutrality and suggestions clear-sighted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvcG8GleTc

The groups' names issue : Anti-normalisers, the sensitive realm of NGOs, and the photography vs. yellow pages balance...

Why are the names of the NGOs, communities, and charities documented in Giving Peace Faces not published with the images?

After thinking about the consequences of publishing the groups names or not, and having a really good email and face to face chat with one member of a project I will hopefully portrait in May (and they do such an amazing, breath taking work that I have to bite my tongue, or rather my hands, to not link them), I have taken the decision not to release the names of the groups I have contacted and whose members have accepted to be portrayed as part of Giving Peace Faces.

Here is a concise list of the main reasons why I have decided against it.
I hope they make sense.

•  Giving Peace Faces is not about providing a list of groups doing some valuable work in Israel and the West Bank. It has neither the resource nor the will to do so. Others, whose purpose it is, do this much better.

• Giving Peace Faces is a Photography project before being anything else, providing the names of the groups would take that primarily Photography focus away by making it a list of organisations.

•  Groups emerge and disappear all the time in this region, the resulting publication would become obsolete quite quickly.

•  Because of anti-normalisers, some groups avoid most publicity and recognition as much as possible: in order to reach their participants and do a real in depth job, especially in the WB, and offer a real opportunity for dialogue to people that would never meet and talk otherwise, they need to stay out of the anti-normalisers radar. The idea I could possibly jeopardise their work and efforts makes me feel sick. Not publishing the organisations names and giving the choice to the people I portrait to change their real name is a simple and efficient step to reduce that risk to the minimum.

• It might be that only one pilot scheme is of interest, inside an organisation that does not focus on dialogue and exchange on the whole. No names avoid confusion.
  
• Communities, more or less organised as projects, charities or NGOs, can be very susceptible about other groups operating in the same field. Some might disapprove of the work, words or members of other groups. It is fair to say that with 20 to 25 organisations to be part of Giving Peace Faces, a clash would be unavoidable sometimes.

• Last but not least, at the core of Giving Peace Faces are individuals, not groups. The person's names are important in making the portraits about real people. It is up to them, after a discussion, to release their name or not with their portraits (because of the anti-normaliser issue mentioned above).

-Possibilities and Solution:

In the consent form, possibility to request or decline having the group's name/link on a dedicated link page (not in the publication at this stage)