Occupied Pleasures

Occupied Pleasures is about humanity’s ability to hold on to joy despite military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The title straddles passive and active meanings: to be occupied under Israel, and to occupy oneself, joyfully and defiantly, in pastime and simple pleasures. What the viewer does not see is what surrounds each frame: the checkpoints, the wall, the permit system, the blockade. More than five million Palestinians live inside that architecture, where the political situation regularly intrudes upon the most mundane of moments. So people take up the space left to them, on the land and in the sea: yoga, parkour, surfing, waiting. The pictures hold the strongest of desires for the smallest of pleasures, and a sharp sense of humour about the absurdities and cruelties that a 59-year occupation has produced.

Occupied Pleasures was heralded by TIME magazine and Smithsonian as one of the best photo books of 2015 (winning a World Press Photo award in 2014).