Since 2005, the Activestills photography collective has been documenting Israeli colonial violence and Palestinian resistance.
Activestills was formed by activist photographers who wanted to document and support Palestinian popular resistance. What started as a small group, grew into a larger collective of Palestinian and international photographers, as well as Israelis who reject Israeli settler colonialism while understanding their position as being part of it. The collective sees its work as part of the struggle against all forms of oppression, racism, and violations of the basic right to freedom. Activestills’ constantly evolving online archive consists of more than 56,000 photos documenting life and death under Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.
Activestills approaches the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as one, working to expose the most blatant attack on human rights and freedom within these borders: the Zionist settler-colonial project led by Israel against the Palestinian population. One of our main topics of documentation is the various forms of resistance against the colonial project, on both sides of the Green Line.
The collective believes in the power of images to shape public attitudes and raise awareness on issues that are generally absent from public discourse, or presented in a misleading way by the media. The international mainstream media often repeats the Israeli narrative, failing to expose the settler-colonial project as the main cause of violence and human rights violations in the area. We wish to challenge this state of affairs by producing work which supports the efforts of the oppressed in bringing their narrative into the visible public sphere.
In addition, Activestills covers various topics including women's rights, LGTBQI rights, animal rights, migrants and asylum-seekers and other struggles for freedom and equality. We are aware that some of the political agents taking part in these struggles within Israeli society also take an active part in the oppression of the Palestinian people. We want to reiterate that our work is done with the motivation to denounce the colonial reality which creates and sustains endless divisions between different ethnic and religious groups on all levels of existence: political, social, economic, gender and so forth. The only future we wish to imagine is one in which full rights for all beings in the region are fulfilled.
We are fully committed to the struggle of the Palestinian people and their rights and freedom. We work together according to this aim, taking into consideration the complexity and the current limitations on cooperation between political agents from both sides.
Our collective is self-organized independent structure based on the belief that mutual work serves each photographer’s personal expression, and that joint projects create powerful shared statements. We believe that the photos we take belong to those whose struggles are documented, and thus we share our archive with different activist groups. Our photos are often exhibited in public sphere, street exhibitions, independent publications and by local communities at events, conferences, demonstrations and are used in court hearings. Our images are frequently published in alternative and leading media and are used by human rights, development and advocacy agencies.
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For any kind of use of our images please contact Activestills@gmail.com
