Larry Towell

Birzeit University, Palestine.

06 - 10 February 2006

This workshop is supported by a grant from Foundation Open Society Institute and by a grant from the A.M. Qattan Foundation .  

Larry Towell of Magnum Photos will teach this five-day workshop which is open to 15 young Palestinian photographers.   Larry Towell has long worked in the region and included in his bibliography are two books of photographs of this work:   Then Palestine ; 1999 and No Man's Land ; 2005.   Other books by Larry Towell include:   El Salvador ; 1997 and The Mennonites ; 2000.

Birzeit University is one of the foremost Palestinian universities.   Its students, like those throughout the occupied Palestinian Territories, have been intensely isolated during the past five years of the intifada.   For much of this time they have been under a kind of "town arrest", unable to travel abroad or even to surrounding communities.   Working closely with Rula Halawani, photographer and Director of Birzeit University's Photography Department, this workshop will provide a productive environment in which the students will be encouraged to think and work as professionals while discovering and building upon their own personal style and visual language.

It will also help lay the foundation for future collaborations between Palestinian photographers and the international photography community establishing a network for image-makers interested in dialogue and exchange.  

The photographs made during this workshop will be hung on the Al-liquindoi gallery .