Serene Oasis

“Serene Oasis” Format: 4”x5” B&W film, Silver Gelatin Prints (11”x14”) and Pigment Prints ( 36”x44”) More than 60 million people are currently displaced around the world because of conflict and persecution, the largest number ever recorded by the UN. The increase in armed conflicts, economic hardship and civil wars in almost every continent created waves of immigration and millions of refugees in transit seeking asylum in foreign states in hopes to provide for their families and in search for a safer future. I started this project in the fall of 2014 as a reaction for the growing intolerance, prejudice and ignorance I encountered in Israel towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers. The name for this project comes from the literal English translation for “Neve Sha’anan”. A small, poor neighborhood located in the Southeast part of Tel Aviv which is home for thousands of African, Asian, Eastern Europeans and Israelis. Neve Sha’anan was established in the 1920s by Jewish immigrants seeking better lives. It became a symbol of pioneering, innovation, and prosperity in post World War I Palestine under British Mandate. Today, the neighborhood and its residents are in the midst of a heated debate in Israel about immigration, foreign workers and asylum seekers who arrived in Israel and to the neighborhood in the past ten years. The neighborhood is merely one square kilometer in size but includes an incredible variety of people who live, work and are in fact a part of Tel Aviv’s cultural and human landscape. The neighborhood is changing rapidly because of the booming real estate in Tel Aviv and the transitional nature of migrant population. I have been working on this project for 2.5 years to create a valuable document of the streets and the people of Neve Sha’anan before the inevitable change will happen. "Serene Oasis" does not only concern the socio-political situation in "Neve Sha’anan" but puts emphasize on the people who live there.