Noraldin Musa | Waiting

Noraldin Musa | Waiting | Solo Exhibition

One Year at Holot Detention Center, 29.1.2014-29.1.2015

All Photos Were Taken With a Smartphone

Parasite Space, Tel Aviv

Curated by Michal Heiman

Opening: 29.12.2014

Closing: 31.1.2015

Noraldin, like many other asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea, was summoned to the Holot Detention Facility under the force of the “Anti-Infiltration Law”. This law was twice dismissed by the Supreme Court. A third version of it is awaiting a decision. Noraldin is also waiting.

For a year Noraldin has been locked in Holot, a facility in the middle of the desert, purposefully removed from society. Prior to his detention, Noraldin had lived in Israel for several years. In addition to his activities for his own community, he had worked for a living and was integrated into the local culture.

Once a productive man, Noraldin is forced to spend his days sitting idly. And so he began to document his environment through photography.

This exhibition is comprised of these photographs from Holot, taken on Noraldin’s mobile phone.

These were sent to me by Sigal Avivi, who further wrote:

“Noraldin is a leader; a wonderful man of many talents. He utilizes his time in Holot to take beautiful pictures of the desert … calculating the angles of the sun during the day to receive the lighting he wants … and returns to the same location in different hours to take pictures under different lighting…”

And so I named the exhibition WAITING: as Noraldin does for his release from the unjust detention at Holot and for the beauty of the light.

All of the photos are for sale and all revenue will go to Noraldin.

Noraldin’s preface for the show (as written by Noraldin):

Name: NOURELDIN MUSA NASERELDIN MUSA

Date of birth: 20/8/1976

Place of birth: Bendisea, W, Darfur, Sudan (I grew up in New Halfa, in the Eastern Sudan)

Education: High secondary school (I could not attend academic studies because of the civil war)

The road taken: I fled my home country in 1999. My first stop was Libya. I was 23 years old. I came to Israel in 14/05/2008.

Work: I worked in the Dead Sea (in the pastry kitchen of the Royal Hotel & the Daniel Hotel).

Holot Detention Center: Since 29.1.2014

Photography: I got interested in photography in May 2014, in the desert in the south of Israel. It is there that I started to figure out the beautiful scenery of the desert. It is a place where I am waiting for the hope to deepen inside my heart, waiting for the nature to create the pretty beauty of the scene of daily life in the quite desert. Everything changes very slowly but beautifully in a very promising way.