DEAN MAJD, SEPARATION, 2018
“Majd’s project Separation explores the contradictions of faith and grief, family and separation, hope and apartheid. Shot in 2018 during his very first visit to Palestine – and accompanied by his mother, a Palestinian refugee born in exile – Separation is bookended by two aerial photos of Jordan, and chronicles Majd’s journey from New York, to Amman, to the West Bank, to Israel, and back again. He documents Palestinian life along the way, mostly of his own elderly family many of whom he is meeting for the first time, and some for the last time too.
While we have become accustomed to the stereotype of Palestine as an inherently violent and terrorised place – captured most recently in devastating images of the rubble of Gaza – Separation is more about the stuff of everyday life. The domestic, rural setting – and golden light – offers some respite from the landscape of urban destruction that we are so often exposed to in media coverage of the so-called conflict.” - Another Mag
“It was important to be honest with myself. I don’t experience apartheid in the same way my family does, so I didn’t want to deliberately seek out the violence of that system. Still, at the border, the Israelis tried to take my camera and they put my film rolls through the x-ray – two, three, four times – even though I begged them not to. Some of the images are fried. In the end, I guess the violence of the state was imposed on the series. In the photo of my mother, I actually think it enhances the intimacy.” - Dean Majd
“The series is maternal. I don’t speak Arabic, so I needed my mum there to protect me. I also feel I played a parental role too. We had our own world. We bonded so much. The trip was transformative for both of us.” - Dean Majd
“I’m not religious, but we prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. I went through the motions, I thanked God internally for all the people in my life. When I saw the attacks on the mosque last month I was just devastated. When you’ve experienced the holiness, it’s so painful to see that place desecrated. I took a social media hiatus because it was too hard to watch. I hope these photographs can be healing to others and attest to Palestine’s humanity.” - Dean Majd