Tarwida

Gaza's first professional photography studio opened in 1944, founded by an Armenian genocide survivor. Decades later, his grandson found its surviving negatives in a closet in Cairo.

Palestinian-Armenian visual artist and creative director Kegham Djeghalian joins Tarwida to talk about Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing, the exhibition built from his grandfather's archive. It has toured Cairo, Sharjah, Geneva, and Marseille, with Bristol and Antwerp next.

In this episode:

• How Kegham Djeghalian Sr. went from Anatolia to Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and finally Gaza
• Armenians and the early history of photography in the Levant
• What the photographs show about everyday life in Gaza, 1944–1981
• Finding three boxes of negatives after a 12-year search
• Para-archaeology, the "unmade archive," and why there are no dates or captions
• The Majdalawi weave behind Palestinian thobes, and his fashion work
• How to start archiving your own family photographs

Kegham is a visual artist, professor of fashion practices and visual culture, and artistic director and co-head of the fashion design department at the German International University in Egypt. He is also a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

This episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. 

The episode was recorded on September 19, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here. 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

• Learn more about and follow Kegham Djeghalian Jr. 
• Learn more about Kegham Djeghalian Sr. 
• Check out Kegham’s upcoming and previous exhibitions:
  • Bristol Photo Festival, Photo Kegham (Oct 16–Nov 15, 2026)
  • Marseille exhibition (May 2026) 
  • Mada Masr, Sharjah Biennial 16 
  • Institut français d'Égypte, Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing (Cairo, 2024) 
  • CairoScene, Cairo opening 
  • Ahram Online, Cairo exhibition 
• Dive deeper:
  • The Abdullah Brothers (Abdullah Fréres) 
  • Yessayi Garabedian 
  • Khalil Raad

Chapters: 

0:00 Cold open: scanning the first ten negatives 

0:40 Introducing Kegham Djeghalian Jr. 

2:00 Exhibition tour and the Order of Arts and Letters 

3:10 Photo Kegham: the studio on the facade 

4:50 From Anatolia to Jaffa to Gaza 

8:00 Armenians and the history of photography in the Levant 

10:30 "We shall return": a photographer's politics 

12:30 Abu Bushara, and why he stayed in Gaza 

14:00 The studio as archive, school and meeting place 

16:00 What the photographs show of everyday Gaza 

19:00 Photography without a colonial gaze 

21:30 Knowing a grandfather he never met 

24:00 Twelve years of searching, then three boxes in a Cairo closet 

28:00 Scanning ten negatives and choosing to walk away 

30:30 Returning to the boxes and "conversing with his ghost" 

33:00 Para-archaeology and the unmade archive 

37:30 Why the exhibition has no dates or captions 

40:30 Self-portrait of Kegham and his children on the beach 

43:15 The book, the publishers, and Gazans recognizing family in Cairo 

45:30 What his grandfather would have thought 

47:30 What happened to Photo Kegham 

49:30 The Majdalawi fabric project 

53:45 Archiving Intimacy: how to start a family archive

What makes a place feel like itself? In this episode of Tarwida, Palestinian architect Elias Khuri explores architecture as a layering of people, histories, nature, language, and memory.

We discuss his latest installation "Noon Insan," through which he reveals his connection to Palestinian writers and artists Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata. What Boullata attempted to do visually, and what Elias Khoury attempted to do through language, Khuri is attempting to do through architecture.

Reflecting on several of his projects, including a house built around 12 ancient olive trees and his work on restoring the historic Khan Jaljulia, Khuri explains how a sense of place can be lost when buildings are separated from their surroundings as opposed to when they are built with what is already there. 

Finally, Khuri revisits important features of Arab architecture that are increasingly disappearing with modern, capitalist modes of construction, including intimate third spaces such as the hosh and riwaq.

This episode was recorded on August 16th, 2026. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube here.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Social media VO by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

• Follow Elias Khuri on Instagram (@elias_khuri)
• Visit Tanas 
• Read Noon Insan by Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata 
• Learn more about Kamal Boullata 
• Read about the restoration of Khan Jaljulia 
• Visit Khuri’s 12 olive trees house

1:18 — Meet Elias Khuri: Becoming an Architect

3:41 — Mediterranean Architecture

4:27 — Noon: Elias’s favorite letter and its connection to Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata  

10:07 — Western vs. Arab Architecture

11:49 — Building Around 12 Olive Trees

16:50 — How Colonization Changed the Architecture of Palestine

19:43 — The Disappearance of the Hosh and Riwaq

23:12 — Restoring Khan Jaljulia

31:00 — Tanas and the Importance of a Shared Architectural Language

What happens when a city itself becomes an archive? In this episode, architect and historian Nadi Abusaada takes us through different Palestinian cities to explore how material traces can help reconstruct a history marked by destruction, displacement, and erasure.

The conversation begins with Abusaada's installation for Amman Design Week 2026, which reconstructs a lost fountain from Jerusalem's Palace Hotel using one surviving ceramic tile designed by Armenian ceramicist David Ohannessian. He then discusses his work curating the Palestinian Museum’s permanent exhibition, which challenges the idea of permanence and instead explores the ongoing process of making Palestinian history.

From there, we explore Palestinian landscapes and agricultural terraces as evidence of generations of knowledge, before turning to Jaffa and its transformation from a cosmopolitan Palestinian city into a caricatured version of itself, used as a backdrop for Israeli cultural production and gentrification.

The episode ultimately asks what it means to preserve history without freezing it, to reclaim the past without turning it into a fantasy, and to build contemporary spaces that are connected to the places, people, and histories that came before them.

This episode is produced in collaboration with Amman Design Week, opening its fourth edition October 2–17 under the theme "Accumulations."

The episode was recorded on August 3rd, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

• Follow Nadi Abusaada on Instagram (@nadi.saadeh)
• Visit the Palestinian Museum
• Explore Amman Design Week and its 2026 edition, "Accumulations"
• Check out Tawfik Canaan’s amulet collection
• Read Samia Halabi’s article on Mustafa Al Hallaj
• Learn more about Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Al Jafari and his film Recollection
• Read Nadi Abusaada's article on Palestinian terraces
• Learn more about The Destruction of Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter
• Read more about David Ohannessian

EPISODE CHAPTERS:
 01:33 – Introducing Nadi Abusaada and his connection to Jerusalem 
 05:00 – David Ohannessian and the Palace Hotel fountain
 08:27 – Reconstructing Palestinian history from fragments
 11:15 – Rethinking the "permanent" exhibition at the Palestinian Museum
 16:30 – Mustafa Al Hallaj: when sculpture becomes impossible to carry
 18:52 – Searching for Palestine in Israeli and colonial archives
 21:48 – Palestinian terraces as material evidence
 26:21 – Jaffa: the destruction and gentrification of a cosmopolitan Palestinian city
 32:51 – Is Palestinian architecture more Palestinian or Arab?
 38:20 – Why do we romanticize the Arab past?

Palestinian artist Dima Srouji doesn't work in one discipline — she works in scale. In this episode, we sit down with Srouji to trace her path from architecture school at Yale to becoming one of the region's leading voices in glass art, archaeology, and material heritage.

Srouji discusses the pivotal year of 2016 — leaving corporate architecture in New Haven and New York to move back to Palestine — and how a chance studio visit to a glassblowing family in Jaba' (who were, at the time, making chemistry beakers and bongs) launched a decade-long collaboration that evolved into serious research on ancient Roman and early Islamic glass traditions across Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.

The conversation moves through the differences between Hebron and Jaba' glassmaking techniques, Srouji's forthcoming installation of 100 glass snails and figs at Qasr al-Abd for Amman Design Week 2026, and her ongoing work replicating looted Palestinian artifacts — including pieces from the Tell Ajul excavation — for permanent display at the Palestinian Museum. Srouji and Tala also discuss how Israeli archaeological practice has been used as a tool of land grabbing and erasure, from Sebastia to Silwan, and Srouji's recent work as a production designer reconstructing 1930s Silwan for a Palestinian feature film.

This episode is produced in collaboration with Amman Design Week, opening its fourth edition October 2–17 under the theme "Accumulations."

This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Social media VO by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was recorded on August 3rd, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here. 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

• Check out more of Dima Srouji’s work (dimasrouji.com) and follow her on socials (@dimasrouji) 
  • Ghosts collection (V&A/Met/Penn Museum replica project): dimasrouji.com/ghosts
  • Bio & profile, Royal College of Art: rca.ac.uk/more/staff/dima-srouji
  • Profile, Lawrie Shabibi gallery: lawrieshabibi.com/artists/187-dima-srouji
  • "Meet the Palestinian Architect Creating Ethereal Glass Vessels," Galerie Magazine: galeriemagazine.com/dima-srouji
• Explore more about Amman Design Week (ammandesignweek.com) and their upcoming exhibition, “Accumulations” 
• Learn more about Sebastia: 
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre listing: whc.unesco.org/en/list/1809
  • Al Jazeera, "Will UNESCO's heritage listing halt Israeli plans for Sebastia?": aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/27
  • WAFA, official Palestinian announcement: english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/172880
• Support Save Silwan (@savesilwan) 
• Read Nadia Abu El-Haj’s book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (2001) 
• Learn more about Palestinian artist and art historian, Kamal Boullata

Few artists have captured the soul of Palestine the way Sliman Mansour has. His paintings featuring olive trees, stone terraces, mud, and the steadfast women of the land have carried Palestine across generations and borders. In this conversation, Mansour looks back on his childhood as well as the mischief and hardships that shaped him. A pioneer of contemporary Palestinian art and a teacher who rooted creativity in local materials, he speaks with humor and sharp honesty about what art means to him, sharing not only his achievements but also his moments of fragility and disappointments. 

This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. This conversation was conducted in Arabic and recorded on July 8, 2025. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube through this link. Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about their very own Palestine. In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be. Follow us on @tarwidapodcast 

This episode was originally published on September 15th, 2025. Listen to this episode on YouTube here. 

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Relevant links and Resources: 

- Follow Sliman Mansour on Instagram @sliman.mansour Purchase Mansour’s artwork through his website (https://slimanmansour.com/palestinian...) or on Zawyeh (https://zawyeh.store/product-category...) 

- Learn more about Ismail Shammout (https://www.palquest.org/en/biography...) 

- Learn more about Bashar Khalaf (https://zawyeh.net/bashar-khalaf/)

"Establish our own discourse. Theirs is rotten. We don't need it."

That's Samia Halaby — Palestinian abstract painter, scholar, activist, and at 89, one of the most vital voices in contemporary art — speaking directly to the next generation of Palestinian artists. In today’s episode, Tala sits down with Samia for a wide-ranging conversation that spans childhood in Jerusalem, decades of painting and teaching, and a career defined as much by what the art world tried to suppress as by what it eventually had to celebrate.

Born in 1936 during the Arab Revolt in Palestine, Samia was displaced with her family at age 11 during the 1948 Nakba. Those first 11 years — absorbed visually, intensely, synesthetically — became the foundation for a lifetime of looking. Samia describes how as a child she assigned colors and shapes to sounds and how her grandmother's apple-seed recipe came to symbolize everything lost in 1948.

The episode moves through her development as a painter, her rejection of "self-expression" as a capitalist myth, her conviction that abstraction is a tool for understanding reality rather than decorating it, and the way she was backed into becoming an artist at her mother's encouragement. She discusses her landmark work on the Kafr Qasem massacre — a book of documentary drawings now published in Arabic — and the very different choice she made with Massacre of the Innocents (2024), an abstract response to Gaza where documentation wasn't needed because the world was already watching.

Tala and Samia also discuss the censorship that defined recent years: Indiana University's cancellation of her retrospective in December 2023, Michigan State's removal of Six Golden Heroes in 2024, and what she learned about institutional cowardice and the differences between administrations, professors, and students. As she puts it: "They handed me proof everlasting that they're racist."

This episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was recorded on May 28th, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

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Relevant links & resources: 

Episode Chapters: 

"We spent all our lives walking into other people's museums. The time had come to walk into our own."

Today, we sit down with Faisal Saleh — Palestinian entrepreneur, photographer, and founder of the Palestine Museum US — to talk about what it took to build the first permanent Palestinian museum in the Western Hemisphere, and what it means to tell Palestine's story through art when so much of the world refuses to look.

Faisal walks through his early life in Al-Bireh and the entrepreneurial instinct that eventually led him to found his own institution in Woodbridge, Connecticut in 2018. We discuss the founding of the Edinburgh branch on Dundas Street, the vandalism the museum has weathered, and two consecutive years of rejection from the Venice Biennale before this year's acceptance.

The centerpiece of the episode is the story behind the exhibit "Gaza, No Words" — a collection of 100 embroidered Tatreez panels created in a single year by 60 Palestinian women in refugee camps in Lebanon and the West Bank, documenting the Gaza genocide stitch by stitch. Faisal describes the process behind the panels, the emotional weight of the imagery, and why the exhibit's title was left intentionally wordless. He closes with his plans for a future Gaza Genocide Museum and a forthcoming book. 

This episode is hosted by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was recorded on May 28th, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

In this episode of Tarwida, we sit down with Noora Baker, Head of Production at El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe — one of the most celebrated Palestinian folk dance companies in the world, founded in 1979 with over 300 members and 16 major productions.

Noora takes us through her journey as a dancer since 1987, beginning at age seven during the First Intifada, to leading production on El-Funoun's latest work Ya Sahib Al-Tayr (2025). We explore the roots of Palestinian dabke, its evolution from village ritual to political symbol, and the tension between organic street dance and choreographed stage performance.

We also discuss how El-Funoun preserves Palestinian folklore, refusing politically conditioned funding, and the power of collective movement as a form of resistance. 

The episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our associate producer Zeena Shehadeh. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was recorded on January 9th, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here. 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

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Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links and resources:

Productions Mentioned

In this episode of Tarwida, we share a remarkable conversation with Dr. Salman Abu Sitta — cartographer, historian, and founder of the Palestine Land Society — recorded on the Makdisi Street podcast.

Dr. Abu Sitta was born in Al-Maa'in near Khan Yunis and was expelled from his home as a 10-year-old boy during the Nakba of 1948. Over the following 75 years, he transformed personal loss into one of the most comprehensive documentary projects on Palestine ever undertaken: mapping 1,200 villages, cataloguing 50,000 place names, opening boxes sealed since 1877, and calculating — with meticulous precision — that 88% of the land Palestinian refugees were expelled from remains effectively vacant today.

In this conversation, Dr. Abu Sitta speaks about oral history and the colonial archive, the meaning of UN Resolution 194, the legal and practical feasibility of the right of return, the fight to preserve UNRWA, and why the question of Palestine is, at its core, a question of people being kept from going home.

He is 85 years old. He was there. And he is still counting.

Thank you to the Makdisi Street podcast for allowing us to share this episode with the Tarwida audience. This episode is hosted by the Makdisi brothers, Kareem, Sari, and Ossama and produced by Sina. Intro by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. The episode was adapted by Tarwida associate producer Zeena Shehadeh. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was originally published on February 7th, 2024. 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

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Relevant links and Resources: 

Chapters: 

00:00:00 - Introduction 

00:01:00 Meet Dr. Salman Abu Sitta 

00:04:00 - A Family Rooted in Palestine 

00:07:00 - The Night of the Nakba 

00:09:00 - From Refugee to Scholar 

00:12:00 - Nationality: Uncertain 

00:15:00 - Excavating the Colonial Archive 

00:25:00 - They Carried the Memory in Their Head 

00:35:00 - The War on Archives 

00:39:00 - Rebuilding Palestine: The Architecture Competition 

00:43:00 - Renaming the Land 

00:47:00 - Resolution 194 and the Right of Return 

00:52:00 - 88% of Palestinian Village Sites Remain Vacant 

01:03:00 - UNRWA, Refugee Status, and the Fight Over 194 

01:23:00 - Liberation, Law, and Steadfastness

In this re-release of one of our favorite conversations from last year, multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and director of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Amer Shomali, sits down for a conversation about art, identity, and resistance.

Amer shares his journey from a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to studying architecture at Birzeit University, and the chance encounter that redirected his life toward his true passion in art and film. We explore three of his most iconic works: the viral Visit Palestine poster (2009), the lipstick portrait of Leila Khaled (The Icon, 2011), and his acclaimed animated documentary The Wanted 18 - the story of 18 cows that became a symbol of non-violent Palestinian resistance during the First Intifada.

We then turn to the Palestinian Museum, which Amer took over as director on October 8th, 2023, just one day after the genocide in Gaza began. He speaks about the challenges of running a museum when 80% of the national collection has been looted, and 80% of the audience lives in diaspora, and how the museum is redefining what a cultural institution can be. From the living exhibition This Is Not an Exhibition featuring Gazan artists, to the open-source traveling exhibition Gaza Remains: The Story, to the Digital Archives now holding over 400,000 documents — this episode explores the necessity of cultural resilience.

This conversation was recorded on December 1st, 2024.

This episode is hosted by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

Tarwida Podcast is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about Creative Palestine. 

Relevant links and Resources: