Children’s Home is a series of 35 photographs of orphanages, 10 of which are in the collection of MSN. Young people do their schoolwork and perform chores around the center, but also organize their free time. Most often they are in a group. Even if one of the children does something alone, e.g. solves a Sudoku puzzle, their friends sit next to them and observe the progress. Only at bedtime do children separate from the group. Shibli’s cinematography is devoid of drama—the artist accompanies her protagonists, refraining from judging the situations she observes. Intimate scenes show the strong bonds between those living under the same roof.

The artist behind the work is Palestinian photographer Ahlam Shibli. She took photographs at 11 orphanages when traveling around Poland in 2008. The artist is known primarily for her depictions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, but she also works in other parts of the world. She explores the broad themes of home, belonging and exclusion, both in her native context and internationally. She examines various ways of coping with the situation of “unhoming” (as she titled her 2009 exhibition at MSN), treating the models of life she observes not as a substitute for what is absent, but as an alternative with its own unique properties. In the Polish children’s homes she visited, she was interested in the community built by young people and how they learn about each other’s needs and develop their interests in a group.

Shibli stresses that she does not create photo reportage. From the hundreds of images she takes in her work on a series, she chooses at most a few dozen and assembles a story on a topic of interest to her. In the Children’s Home series, she wanted to emphasize the subjectivity of children who are usually portrayed in the media as victims of abuse. This is why she did not focus on the oppressive nature of such institutions.

[M.P.]