In my research for the right online archive, I have uploaded some of the art from The Berkeley School in California, and al-Bashayer in Antakya, Turkey. The pictures look great, and Photoshelter does have search features. You can see the pictures at http://davidgross.photoshelter.com/, one of my personal websites. Click on the “Artivism” link on the right…
We’ve taken a short, holiday break from Inside-Outside, which has allowed me to process the film I’d taken so far. In the spirit of our last post, here are a couple of the portraits I’ve made in Reyhanli: We hitched a ride one day with a boy collecting recyclables with his mule and cart. Here’s…
A few days ago, we asked you, Dear Readers, whether you would like to see some of the photographs and drawings from our project now, or whether we should instead unveil them all for the first time in the Inside-Outside eBook. The reply was a resounding “now”! You asked, and we shall deliver. (Again, because…
Much to my delight, it snowed here in Reyhanli on Wednesday. It was beautiful, and although the snow in the streets melted quickly, the surrounding hills remained dusted with white. And of course, as beautiful as it is, it also makes life incredibly difficult for all the families who are living here without heat, not…
We wait for Mohamad to call us this morning. It is difficult to wait, feeling like we are losing time. Then, too, there is the fear that someone will change his mind and refuse us access. We depend on others’ good graces to do this work, and we seek to make the best of our…
Our posts on the blog will most likely be fewer and far between for the next couple of weeks due to unpredictable internet service. In particular, it can be hard to upload photos, so I may stick to writing short updates with fewer photos for the time being. We are now in the town of…
At long last, we are leaving Istanbul tomorrow for Antakya, in Hatay Province. Don’t get me wrong, Istanbul is an amazing city. In many ways, I feel lucky that we ended up staying here as long as we did. But I’m looking forward to arriving in Hatay province. We have a number of potential options…
As I discussed in an earlier post, we’ve run into more logistical hoops in doing this project than we had hoped. In fact, part of the challenge so far has been figuring out which permissions we actually need to get, and from whom. Bureaucratic details make for a lousy blog entry, so let me just…
We visited two Syrian schools in Istanbul today. There is much to say — not everything is how we expected! — but for now, we are exhausted, so we will just post this short entry. (David says, “If I’m writing oddly, it’s because my language skills are all twisted up. I’ve been speaking pidgin Turkish all…
Exciting news! Through one of David’s acquaintances, we met a German journalist based here in Istanbul. She has been covering the Syrian schools opening both along the border and here in Istanbul. She’s connected us with the director of one of those schools, and we’re meeting with him tomorrow. He is enthusiastic about the project,…
