Natan Dvir June 14, 2010

Aseel, Um El-Fahem 2009

Natan Dvir (b. 1972, Israel) received his MBA at Tel Aviv University and MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. His work has been published in Newsweek, Glamour, Le Monde, Stern, Focus, Die Zeit, among others. Natan is a winner of the PDN Annual, American Photograph and B&W Spider Awards. He is represented by Polaris Images. Natan recently won the New York Photo Festival Award in the Social Documentary Essay category for his work “Eighteen” sponsored by the Other Israel film festival about the Arab population of Israel. It’s on exhibit this month at Visual Arts Gallery in NYC.

About the Photograph:

“Mixed emotions filled me as I entered Um Al Fahem to meet Aseel: a Jewish man in an Arab city considered by most Jewish Israelis as violent. I was a tourist in my own country. Amazing hospitality and openness soon chased away any fears, replacing them with curiosity and interest. Although I lived in Israel and photographed it most of my life I felt I did not really know or understand its large Arab minority (over 20% of the country’s population) born into an identity crisis. Most individuals I approached expressed great skepticism about my project- “Why would a Jewish person be interested in investigating an Arab person’s life?” The initial tension waned down in most cases leading to interesting interaction.”