Bring a family photo and join a conversation about memory, family and belonging. Together with artist Kegham Djeghalian Jr., we invite Palestinian and Gazan participants to share and explore the stories behind their family photographs during an intimate group conversation.
FOMU presents the exhibition Photo Kegham of Gaza from 5 February 2027. Kegham Djeghalian Sr (1915–1981), an Armenian Genocide survivor who settled in Gaza, founded the city’s first professional photography studio, Photo Kegham, in 1944 and documented its people and everyday life for nearly four decades. In the exhibition, his grandson, artist Kegham Djeghalian Jr, reactivates what remains of this photographic legacy to explore family, memory, place and displacement, while unfolding an intimate, non-linear reading of Gaza’s histories.
FOMU and Kegham Djeghalian Jr. are organizing Family Photo Salons: small, intimate gatherings where Palestinian and Gazan participants come together around family photographs and the stories they carry. We are looking for Palestinian and Gazan participants who want to come together with Kegham Djeghalian Jr. to look at, share, and talk about photographs from their family histories.
Don't live in Antwerp? Disarming Design and Ruq'ah in Brussels will each also host a salon at their location, on 7 November (Disarming Studio) and 8 November (Ruq'ah)
Auto-portrait de Kegham Djeghalian Sr avec ses enfants, Gaza, c.1952
What to expect?
- During a 2-hour session, you will have the opportunity to share and talk about the photographs you bring, the family stories behind them, and the memories they hold.
- Kegham Djeghalian Jr will be present to guide the conversation and to think together with the group. There is no preparation required and no right or wrong way to talk about a photograph.
- The conversation is open and informal: we might talk about a person in a photograph, a place, a memory, the story behind the image, or what the photograph means to you today.
What images can I bring?
Participants are invited to bring 1-3 family photographs that are meaningful to you. These can be:
- printed or digital photographs
- old family photographs
- photographs of people, places, celebrations or everyday moments in Palestine or Gaza
- photographs whose story you know well, or photographs whose story is partly forgotten or even unknown
You can also simply come and take part in the conversation without bringing a photograph.
Practical information
- Who can register? Palestinian and Gazan participants
- Where and when: 6 November, 19:00-21:00 at FOMU, Waalsekaai 47, 2000 Antwerp
- Max. 8-12 participants
- The main language is Arabic. Participants are also welcome to speak English or French.
- Registering is required through this form
Documentation and consent
The conversations will be audio and video recorded as a way of documenting and archiving these encounters. A camera above the table will record the photographs, hands and gestures around them, while the conversation will be recorded through sound. You can also choose to speak to the camera or show your face, if you wish.
By registering for the Family Photo Salon, you agree to the documentation of the session and to the possible use of the recordings as described below. On the day of the salon, we will go through the consent form together and ask you to sign it before the session starts. The recordings may be edited into an audiovisual work or another form of documentation, which will be shown as part of the Photo Kegham of Gaza exhibition at FOMU. Photographs brought by participants will be shared during the salon but will not be collected.
Brussels sessions:
7 November, 14:00-16:00 at Disarming Design Studio, Zaterdagplein 13, 1000 Brussels
8 November, 14:00-16:00 at Ruq’ah, Lakensestraat 157, 1000 Brussels
About Kegham Djeghalian Jr
Kegham Djeghalian Jr is a Palestinian-Armenian visual artist and creative director based between Cairo and Paris, whose practice unfolds across image-making, visual culture, archival practices and fashion.
For more than a decade, a central enquiry within his practice has developed through Photo Kegham of Gaza, an ongoing engagement with the precarious photographic legacy of his grandfather, Kegham Djeghalian Sr (1915–1981), founder of Photo Kegham, Gaza’s first professional photographic studio. Through the activation and re-reading of these surviving photographic fragments, Djeghalian explores notions of the unmade archive, affective historiography, and the ways images can produce, unsettle and reclaim histories.
