Born of Sand and Sun

During the 1948 Palestine war many Palestinians were forced to leave their homes. This same fate befell the desert tribes of the Bedouin, but their strong bond with the desert - the heart of their culture - could not be broken. Yet, today, the number of Bedouin people inhabiting their original territories is shrinking, and many are gradually losing their distinct identity. Born of Sand and Sun is not a conventional depiction of the life of a nomadic people nor does it try to capture the current suffering caused by the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. It is a visual metaphor of the gradual disappearance of these brave desert people - all that is left for them are fragments covered with sand, which in time they will themselves become. Over a period of more than three years, Petra Basnáková spent time living in Bedouin communities, to better understand their way of life, and to experience the beauty and simplicity of their existence and their deeply rooted love of the desert itself. The book follows two storylines ‐ the life journey of the Bedouin people and Basnáková’s journey of getting to know them and becoming accepted by the Bedouin community.

Czech‐Slovak based, Petra Basnáková, trained at the Tomas Bata University in Zlin. During her studies, she completed an internship at the Bezalel Academy of arts and design in Jerusalem, where she began working on her project about the Palestinian Bedouins. The series has won several awards, including Slovak Press Photo, Sony World Photography Awards and Ian Parry scholarship. Her work has been shown in many galleries and festivals including Photo London and Photo Israel in Tel Aviv. She is currently preparing a solo exhibition at Leica Gallery and the Josef Sudek Studio in Prague. Her photographs of Bedouins were published in FOTO magazine and Der Spiegel. In 2023, she became a member of ’Women Photograph’.