Occupied Pleasures

Daily Life, second prize stories

June 3, 2013

A woman without a travel permit walks through an underground tunnel between Gaza and Egypt on her way to a party, holding a bouquet of flowers. In the latter half of the year, the new Egyptian military government began closing these secret tunnels, which for many Gaza residents were a main passage in and out of the enclave.

More than four million people live in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, often in overcrowded or deprived conditions. People’s movements are circumscribed and the threat of violence never quite goes away. Yet although the challenges of conflict and occupation overhang everyday life, people are not solely focused on the difficulties of survival.

Location: Rafiah, Palestinian Territory

Photo Credit: Tanya Habjouqa

Tanya Habjouqa (Jordan, 1975) is a documentary photographer specializing in gender, social, and human rights issues in the Middle East.

She approaches her subjects with sensitivity and an eye for the absurd. She is the author of Occupied Pleasures, heralded by TIME magazine and the Smithsonian as one of the best photo books of 2015 (winning a World Press Photo award in 2014). She was the recipient of the Magnum Foundation 2013 Emergency Fund, and mentors grantees from across the Arab region for their “Arab Photographer Documentary Fund” with the Prince Claus Foundation and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.

Tanya is a founding member of Rawiya, the first all female photo collective of the Middle East and member of NOOR. She lectures ‘Narrative/ National Identity in Photography’ at Al Quds Bard University