The Multi-Layered Nature Of The Human Soul

Edge of Humanity Magazine

1 year ago

Photographer Fadwa Rouhana is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Beyond The Visible’. To see Fadwa ’s body of work, click on any photograph.

Spiritual touch – The Resurrection Church
Jerusalem

The theme “Beyond the visible” was inspired by the pilgrims of Bethlehem. The endless queues of people coming from every corner on this earth carrying their pains and hopes to find salvation in the besieged city, made me wonder about the shared or the collective human memory that attracts all those groups from different backgrounds and ethnicities to gather here.

I started taking documentary photos, but I always had the feeling that am unable to reflect the emotions that the scenes were evoking inside me, the wandering eyes of the pilgrims, their search, their anticipation, their fears and hopes, their hidden yearnings, their visible and obscure emotions towards the place and their solemnity and reverence in front of the poignant presence of its history. It’s the puzzle of this human mosaic that my direct documentary photos could never deliver. I found myself engaged in continuous experimental efforts with my camera until I was able to create a multi-layered effect that, for me, reflects the multi-layered nature of the human soul, the shared human memory, the collective human subconscious where the human dreams and fears are all concealed. It is also an attempt to grasp the meaning of salvation in the whole human context, the floating human existence in life, and our fragile passage in time.

Random souls – The Resurrection Church
Jerusalem

Fadwa Rouhana is a Palestinian self-taught photographer born in Haifa and living in Bethlehem.

Her photographic work had developed through her own experimental efforts in a long journey with the camera. Being raised in a place shattered by hurdles and injustice, the camera became an existential necessity, her asset to connect to a reality that had always rendered her estranged and alienated, as a woman and as a human being.

Photography is her own way to contemplate life and its meaning, how people are living it, their hopes and their hardships, their relation with their place and their environment, with their past and with their reality. It is her way to understand the whole human experience and to find her place inside it.

Her work has been shown in Venice, Milan, New York, Sharja, and other places, and it has been featured in numerous international fine art and photography magazines and platforms.

All images and text © Fadwa Rouhana