In Gaza Project, alumnae Liles-Salama responds to the war of summer of 2014 and its effect on her family.
Says Liles-Salama:
Everywhere in Gaza are equal parts beauty and damage, hope and resignation, light and dark. Gaza is without electricity for up to 20 hours a day, causing an incessant preoccupation with finding and acquiring means to light one's environment. My internal attempt to stave of the despair that threatens daily existence and plain hopefulness compels my foraging for light — both the natural and spiritual kinds. I photograph the sky, the sun, spots of light in general; and in the underlying currents of the relationships and invisible mood of everything around me, I'm always on the lookout for metaphors of connection and illumination. In these images, I address the uneasiness and scars the war's aftermath left in us and in our home, the push to make life normal, even beautiful, and the constant search for light.