Tarwida

Gaza's first professional photography studio opened in 1944, founded by an Armenian genocide survivor. Decades later, his grandson found its surviving negatives in a closet in Cairo.
Palestinian-Armenian visual artist and creative director Kegham Djeghalian joins Tarwida to talk about Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing, the exhibition built from his grandfather's archive. It has toured Cairo, Sharjah, Geneva, and Marseille, with Bristol and Antwerp next.
In this episode:
How Kegham Djeghalian Sr. went from Anatolia to Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and finally Gaza
Armenians and the early history of photography in the Levant
What the photographs show about everyday life in Gaza, 1944–1981
Finding three boxes of negatives after a 12-year search
Para-archaeology, the "unmade archive," and why there are no dates or captions
The Majdalawi weave behind Palestinian thobes, and his fashion work
How to start archiving your own family photographs
Kegham is a visual artist, professor of fashion practices and visual culture, and artistic director and co-head of the fashion design department at the German International University in Egypt. He is also a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
This episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna.
The episode was recorded on September 19, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast
Relevant links & resources:
Learn more about and follow Kegham Djeghalian Jr.
Learn more about Kegham Djeghalian Sr.
Check out Kegham’s upcoming and previous exhibitions:Bristol Photo Festival, Photo Kegham (Oct 16–Nov 15, 2026)
Marseille exhibition (May 2026)
Mada Masr, Sharjah Biennial 16
Institut français d'Égypte, Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing (Cairo, 2024)
CairoScene, Cairo opening
Ahram Online, Cairo exhibition

Dive deeper:The Abdullah Brothers (Abdullah Fréres)
Yessayi Garabedian
Khalil Raad

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: scanning the first ten negatives
0:40 Introducing Kegham Djeghalian Jr.
2:00 Exhibition tour and the Order of Arts and Letters
3:10 Photo Kegham: the studio on the facade
4:50 From Anatolia to Jaffa to Gaza
8:00 Armenians and the history of photography in the Levant
10:30 "We shall return": a photographer's politics
12:30 Abu Bushara, and why he stayed in Gaza
14:00 The studio as archive, school and meeting place
16:00 What the photographs show of everyday Gaza
19:00 Photography without a colonial gaze
21:30 Knowing a grandfather he never met
24:00 Twelve years of searching, then three boxes in a Cairo closet
28:00 Scanning ten negatives and choosing to walk away
30:30 Returning to the boxes and "conversing with his ghost"
33:00 Para-archaeology and the unmade archive
37:30 Why the exhibition has no dates or captions
40:30 Self-portrait of Kegham and his children on the beach
43:15 The book, the publishers, and Gazans recognizing family in Cairo
45:30 What his grandfather would have thought
47:30 What happened to Photo Kegham
49:30 The Majdalawi fabric project
53:45 Archiving Intimacy: how to start a family archive

What makes a place feel like itself? In this episode of Tarwida, Palestinian architect Elias Khuri explores architecture as a layering of people, histories, nature, language, and memory.
We discuss his latest installation "Noon Insan," through which he reveals his connection to Palestinian writers and artists Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata. What Boullata attempted to do visually, and what Elias Khoury attempted to do through language, Khuri is attempting to do through architecture.
Reflecting on several of his projects, including a house built around 12 ancient olive trees and his work on restoring the historic Khan Jaljulia, Khuri explains how a sense of place can be lost when buildings are separated from their surroundings as opposed to when they are built with what is already there.
Finally, Khuri revisits important features of Arab architecture that are increasingly disappearing with modern, capitalist modes of construction, including intimate third spaces such as the hosh and riwaq.
This episode was recorded on August 16th, 2026. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube here.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Social media VO by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast
Relevant links & resources:
Follow Elias Khuri on Instagram (@elias_khuri)
Visit Tanas
Read Noon Insan by Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata
Learn more about Kamal Boullata
Read about the restoration of Khan Jaljulia
Visit Khuri’s 12 olive trees house

EPISODE CHAPTERS:

1:18 — Meet Elias Khuri: Becoming an Architect
3:41 — Mediterranean Architecture
4:27 — Noon: Elias’s favorite letter and its connection to Elias Khoury and Kamal Boullata
10:07 — Western vs. Arab Architecture
11:49 — Building Around 12 Olive Trees
16:50 — How Colonization Changed the Architecture of Palestine
19:43 — The Disappearance of the Hosh and Riwaq
23:12 — Restoring Khan Jaljulia
31:00 — Tanas and the Importance of a Shared Architectural Language

What happens when a city itself becomes an archive? In this episode, architect and historian Nadi Abusaada takes us through different Palestinian cities to explore how material traces can help reconstruct a history marked by destruction, displacement, and erasure.
The conversation begins with Abusaada's installation for Amman Design Week 2026, which reconstructs a lost fountain from Jerusalem's Palace Hotel using one surviving ceramic tile designed by Armenian ceramicist David Ohannessian. He then discusses his work curating the Palestinian Museum’s permanent exhibition, which challenges the idea of permanence and instead explores the ongoing process of making Palestinian history.
From there, we explore Palestinian landscapes and agricultural terraces as evidence of generations of knowledge, before turning to Jaffa and its transformation from a cosmopolitan Palestinian city into a caricatured version of itself, used as a backdrop for Israeli cultural production and gentrification.
The episode ultimately asks what it means to preserve history without freezing it, to reclaim the past without turning it into a fantasy, and to build contemporary spaces that are connected to the places, people, and histories that came before them.
This episode is produced in collaboration with Amman Design Week, opening its fourth edition October 2–17 under the theme "Accumulations."
The episode was recorded on August 3rd, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast
Relevant links & resources:
Follow Nadi Abusaada on Instagram (@nadi.saadeh)
Visit the Palestinian Museum
Explore Amman Design Week and its 2026 edition, "Accumulations"
Check out Tawfik Canaan’s amulet collection
Read Samia Halabi’s article on Mustafa Al Hallaj
Learn more about Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Al Jafari and his film Recollection
Read Nadi Abusaada's article on Palestinian terraces
Learn more about The Destruction of Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter
Read more about David Ohannessian
EPISODE CHAPTERS:
01:33 – Introducing Nadi Abusaada and his connection to Jerusalem
05:00 – David Ohannessian and the Palace Hotel fountain
08:27 – Reconstructing Palestinian history from fragments
11:15 – Rethinking the "permanent" exhibition at the Palestinian Museum
16:30 – Mustafa Al Hallaj: when sculpture becomes impossible to carry
18:52 – Searching for Palestine in Israeli and colonial archives
21:48 – Palestinian terraces as material evidence
26:21 – Jaffa: the destruction and gentrification of a cosmopolitan Palestinian city
32:51 – Is Palestinian architecture more Palestinian or Arab?
38:20 – Why do we romanticize the Arab past?

Palestinian artist Dima Srouji doesn't work in one discipline — she works in scale. In this episode, we sit down with Srouji to trace her path from architecture school at Yale to becoming one of the region's leading voices in glass art, archaeology, and material heritage.
Srouji discusses the pivotal year of 2016 — leaving corporate architecture in New Haven and New York to move back to Palestine — and how a chance studio visit to a glassblowing family in Jaba' (who were, at the time, making chemistry beakers and bongs) launched a decade-long collaboration that evolved into serious research on ancient Roman and early Islamic glass traditions across Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.
The conversation moves through the differences between Hebron and Jaba' glassmaking techniques, Srouji's forthcoming installation of 100 glass snails and figs at Qasr al-Abd for Amman Design Week 2026, and her ongoing work replicating looted Palestinian artifacts — including pieces from the Tell Ajul excavation — for permanent display at the Palestinian Museum. Srouji and Tala also discuss how Israeli archaeological practice has been used as a tool of land grabbing and erasure, from Sebastia to Silwan, and Srouji's recent work as a production designer reconstructing 1930s Silwan for a Palestinian feature film.
This episode is produced in collaboration with Amman Design Week, opening its fourth edition October 2–17 under the theme "Accumulations."
This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Lara Dihmis. Social media VO by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman.
The episode was recorded on August 3rd, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast
Relevant links & resources:
Check out more of Dima Srouji’s work (dimasrouji.com) and follow her on socials (@dimasrouji) Ghosts collection (V&A/Met/Penn Museum replica project): dimasrouji.com/ghosts
Bio & profile, Royal College of Art: rca.ac.uk/more/staff/dima-srouji
Profile, Lawrie Shabibi gallery: lawrieshabibi.com/artists/187-dima-srouji
"Meet the Palestinian Architect Creating Ethereal Glass Vessels," Galerie Magazine: galeriemagazine.com/dima-srouji

Explore more about Amman Design Week (ammandesignweek.com) and their upcoming exhibition, “Accumulations”
Learn more about Sebastia: UNESCO World Heritage Centre listing: whc.unesco.org/en/list/1809
Al Jazeera, "Will UNESCO's heritage listing halt Israeli plans for Sebastia?": aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/27
WAFA, official Palestinian announcement: english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/172880

Support Save Silwan (@savesilwan)
Read Nadia Abu El-Haj’s book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (2001)
Learn more about Palestinian artist and art historian, Kamal Boullata

Few artists have captured the soul of Palestine the way Sliman Mansour has. His paintings featuring olive trees, stone terraces, mud, and the steadfast women of the land have carried Palestine across generations and borders. In this conversation, Mansour looks back on his childhood as well as the mischief and hardships that shaped him. A pioneer of contemporary Palestinian art and a teacher who rooted creativity in local materials, he speaks with humor and sharp honesty about what art means to him, sharing not only his achievements but also his moments of fragility and disappointments.

This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. This conversation was conducted in Arabic and recorded on July 8, 2025. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube through this link. Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about their very own Palestine. In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be. Follow us on @tarwidapodcast

This episode was originally published on September 15th, 2025. Listen to this episode on YouTube here.

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Relevant links and Resources:

- Follow Sliman Mansour on Instagram @sliman.mansour Purchase Mansour’s artwork through his website (https://slimanmansour.com/palestinian...) or on Zawyeh (https://zawyeh.store/product-category...)

- Learn more about Ismail Shammout (https://www.palquest.org/en/biography...)

- Learn more about Bashar Khalaf (https://zawyeh.net/bashar-khalaf/)