Regardez-Nous
Regardez-Nous (Look at us) is a Group Action led by the Alliance française of Bethlehem, a local association dedicated to teaching French and organizing events to promote cultural exchange between Palestine and French-speaking countries. The pictures were taken by the students at the institute and aim to portray the diversity of the city’s inhabitants and visitors.
The city of Bethlehem is both famous for its rich historical and religious background and its position in the conflict with Israel, as it is surrounded by the separation wall and located close to the city of Jerusalem. Our action therefore aimed to focus on the people and not on the conflict by showing Bethlehemites’ diversity and counter the narrative that reduces the Palestinian identity to the conflict.
The project first started in 2022 when members of our team met JR in Bethlehem for the screening of his film “Paper and Glue” and had a conversation with him about the Inside/Out project and how enthusiastic they were about it.
There is a major diversity and also splits in the Palestinian community, especially in the city of Bethlehem: religion-wise (Christians, Orthodox, Muslims,...), rich/poor, people who live in rural areas/ people who live in the cities, people who live in refugee camps in the cities. Palestinian identity is plural and has to be portrayed in a comprehensive way in order to be accurate.
We integrated this project into our annual three-week language course for teenagers learning French. The theme of the course was the city of Bethlehem from its historical roots to its modern context. The latter aimed to focus on the people in the same way the Inside/Out project does which led us to connect the two. The students had an intermediate level in French and were between the ages of 11 and 17 years old. They were immediately fond of the project that was carried out by the French teacher Pauline Hérault and a History teacher Yves Heugeudé. The course began with the introduction of what a portrait is and the meaning of it and the students made their own in varied ways. They studied the History of the separation wall and the meaning of the graffiti on it and on many walls in Palestine as well as the History of Bethlehem in general. The course had an interactive and entertaining purpose; the teachers therefore took the students to visit the Banksy Museum (Walled Off Hotel), the Nativity Church, and the Separation Wall and they photographed emblematic figures of the city as well as casual visitors in all those places. Some people were enthusiastic and curious about the work, while others were confused and refused to get their picture taken, especially women, as it is not necessarily culturally accepted for them to take part in such a project.
The exhibition took place in April 2023 along with the celebrations of our association’s 20th anniversary. It attracted a certain number of visitors, some who already knew about the action and others who were just curious about all the pictures on the wall. The teenagers who took the pictures nearly a year before the exhibition were moved to see their project coming to life and the positive reactions of the visitors. Their participation in this action overall helped build a sense of community between them and strengthen their feeling of belonging to that very community in its large diversity. It was all in all a successful event, not only by the amount of people it attracted but also by the conversations it initiated among the participants about Palestinian identity and society.