Tanya Habojouqa premieres Afro Palestinians, a new series at the Houston Museum of African American Culture in the group exhibition NEGATIVE WOMEN: Four Photographers Questioning Boundaries, curated by Christopher Blay. Featuring works created by women photographers pushing against accepted narratives, giving insight to more complete histories. The exhibition presents works by Tanya Habjouqa,Letitia Huckaby, Mari Hernandez and Ciara Elle Bryant’s, all works combine to reflect and reveal untold stories and histories.
Tanya Habjouqa’s new series, Afro-Palestinians focuses on the Africans who are the descendants of those who immigrated to Palestine from Chad, Nigeria, Sudan, and Senegal in the late 19th Century, to Jerusalem for two main purposes. The first had a religious character; the second was to defend the Holy Land from colonial occupation (in addition to supporting the Palestinian community). In 1947, Africans from various nations headed to Palestine to join the Palestinian revolution. They came to consider themselves part of the Palestinian community. Thus, the term ‘African-Palestinian’ entered the lexicon, and a whole new identify was formed, integrating elements of various distinct cultures.
In this series Habjouqa portraits members of this vibrant community including images of Mahmood Jiddeh, whose family moved to the Old City of Jerusalem in 1922. Jiddeh was incarcerated in Israel prisons for 17 years and is the founder of the African Community Society, ACS, a Palestinian non-governmental non-profit organization founded by the Afro-Palestinian community in Jerusalem in 1983.
The exhibition runs until 21 January 2023
Tanya Habjouqa is represented by East Wing.
You can see more of Tanya Habjouqa’s other projects on her website.
Follow her work on Artsy at the East Wing portal.
View more of her projects on Instagram at @habjouqa
