We Shall Remain Here, Until the Pain Is Gone
Double-sided leporello, archival pigment prints.
Edition of 20. (Debuted at Fotofestiwal Łódź, Poland, June 2026).
Forty-odd families lived in the shallow valley of Wadi al Seeq, in the occupied West Bank. In October 2023, Israeli settler and soldier violence forced the last of them from their land. Their school was left in ruins, the children's notebooks buried in the dirt.
This book contains 16 facsimiles of those notebooks, along with 16 photographs of what remained of the school. The original notebooks were returned to the children of Wadi al-Seeq, now dispersed across three West Bank communities, in summer 2025.
The community remains displaced.
The title is screen printed on the covers, appearing to fade away. It is drawn from "Sawfa Nabqa Huna" by Dr. Adel al-Mishiti:
We shall remain here, until the pain is gone
We shall live here, the melody shall grow sweet
Sung by a boy from Hayy al-Zaytoun, where the olives still are.
Translation from the Arabic by Tanya Habjouqa. With gratitude to Jehad Zain, Abu Bashar Kaabneh, mukhtar of Wadi al-Seeq, and the children of Wadi al-Seeq.