with Akram Dweik, in conversation with Tareq Bakri

Monday, 19 January, 17:00–19:00
Location: the Palestinian Museum
Language: Arabic

This talk explores the lesser-known aspects of the life of Khalil Raad, the first Arab professional photographer in Jerusalem. By tracing his childhood, upbringing, and early education, Akram Dweik approaches Raad’s human and professional dimensions, as well as the questions that shaped his early attraction to photography and image-making.

In conversation with Tareq Bakri, the discussion expands to examine the relationship between photography and the memory of place, and the photographic archive as an act of documentation and resistance to erasure, in light of Raad’s project, whose continuity was disrupted by the Nakba.

Akram Dweik reflects:

“Barely seven years old when he left his hometown in Mount Lebanon, Khalil Raad travelled south to Jerusalem to begin his studies at Bishop Gobat School. Rather than becoming a teacher or a priest, the young Raad developed a talent for photography. By the 1890s, he made the bold decision to transform part of his modest apartment into a photography studio, quickly attracting a diverse clientele and establishing his name in the history of local photography in Palestine. Yet his story remains marked by gaps and untold details. While existing sources document his achievements and the growth of his practice from the 1890s onwards, my research seeks to shed light on the largely unknown early years of his life: his childhood, upbringing, early education, and first encounters with photography. Through this path, I aim to better understand Raad’s human and professional dimensions, to explore what drew him to the world of images, what compelled him to continue, and how his early experiences shaped the contours of his exceptional career in the history of local photography”.