Rusty Stewart’s works were exhibited at the Women for Palestine art exhibition in 2004 entitled Palestine Lost. Rusty had then recently returned from a trip to the West Bank and Gaza where he had spent some 3 months. It was his second trip to Palestine. Rusty came back with hundreds of photographs from which we could choose only 40 prints to exhibit because we lacked the space to show more. This exhibition gives us the opportunity to exhibit a much more comprehensive eyewitness view of life in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. The photographs show the full gamut of human experiences in a conflict zone – the terror, the despair, the deprivation, the struggles, the grief, the hopelessness, the anger, the frustration – and like turning a page, they also show the other side of human emotions– the curiosity, the humour, the generosity, the tenderness, the cheekiness, the joy, the hope, the faith, the determination. Rusty has captured the best and the worst of Palestinian life under occupation – so many hauntingly poignant and all heartbreakingly real. |
