Kent Klich: Black Friday

Photographer Kent Klich’s new project Black Friday is the third part of his ongoing portrayal of life in Gaza. The two previously are Gaza Photo Album (2009) and Killing Time (2013) *. His pictures can be seen as a reaction to all the disaster images from the area that reaches us via the media; these constant press photos of violence. Klich talks more about the conditions under which the people of Gaza live. We often only meet the environment, the place where something happened – the traces of the events, after the violence. Or we meet the people before the moments that changed everything, in the everyday life that nevertheless exists. The strength of the pictures lies in what they omit, what is not visible but which we still know.

In the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, approximately 1.8 million people live on an area about the size of a quarter of Öland. Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which this year enters into its ninth year, affects the freedom of movement of the Palestinian people, trade with the outside world, educational opportunities and future hopes. From 2008 until today, Gaza has been subjected to three attacks. The latest attack, Operation Protective Edge, took place in the summer of 2014, when over 2100 Palestinians (the majority of civilians according to the UN) were killed, 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel. Black Friday depicts the attack on the city of Rafah: 01-08-2014, and its aftermath.

At seven in the morning on Friday, August 1, 2014, the sky silences over Gaza, when a 72-hour ceasefire comes into force. But the ceasefire gets a quick end. At his blog, Israel’s military (IDF) writes: “We suspect that a group of Hamas terrorists, including a suicide bomber, have kidnapped second Lieutenant Goldin at. 9:30 & has dragged him into a tunnel. In the coming hours, the residents of Rafah will be attacked with more than 2000 bombs, missiles and grenades. More than 130 Palestinians are killed during the day, the majority of them civilians.

Black Friday testifies to the events during these intense hours. Kent Klich’s photographs were taken retrospectively by places where Palestinians were killed and in the searched tunnel area where the Israeli soldier was captured. The empty places are set against photographed id, passport and family photos of the Palestinians who died on 1–3 August. The exhibition also shows a presentation by Amnesty and Forensic Architecture, a research project in London that collects and presents spatial analysis in various legal and political forums.