time, narrative and photography - firas leila
   Firas is from Naher al Bared. Throughout the workshop, he was generous with others and offered
insightful comments on their work.
His displacement from Naher al Bared camp was a constant
theme in his photographs. He called himself an “again-refugee”, and was interested in trying to
think through the placement of the tragedy of Naher al Bared within the historical archive of
Palestinian refugees.
In this photographic triptych representing the past, present and future of
loss he tried to express a future that is unknown - represented by the light in the dark. With this
Firas tried to show that the crisis of the displaced from Naher al Bared is bound to be resolved,
but nobody knows how and at what cost.
Firas chose not to take a picture of the present, arguing
that it was unrepresentable. To show the past, Firas has taken a picture of his shirt surrounded by
lit candles, marks of mourning. At first when we were discussing the pictures I did not
understand the significance of the shirt. Firas then told me that it was what he was wearing when
he was forced to flee from the fighting in Naher al Bared. This shirt and the pants he was
wearing were the only items of clothing he had when he arrived in Beddawi camp.
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