Barbara Debeuckelaere - ’Om (Mother)

The Eriskay Connection 2024

’Om (Mother) is a collaborative photography project by Barbara Debeuckelaere (BE) and all the women of eight families from Tel Rumeida in Hebron, Palestine. Apart from Jerusalem, Hebron is the only place in the West Bank where radical Israeli settlers live in the heart of a Palestinian city, and is home to several sites sacred to both Jews and Arabs. The entanglement of small and heavily guarded settlements cuts up historic neighbourhoods into small sectors with checkpoints, severely restricting the freedom of movement of Palestinian residents. Since only two per cent of the Old City’s population is Israeli, protected by more than twice as many soldiers, tensions in this split society regularly escalate.

With an essay by Adam Broomberg