The Winning Images of the Inaugural RPL Student Photo Competition
RPL invited Harvard graduate students participating in RPL programs to submit photographs from their summer internship experiences for a judged photo competition. Students were invited to address the theme of religion and public life and a just world at peace while adhering to RPL's ethical photography guidance. Below are the winners of the inaugural competition who were celebrated at an Open House in November. Come by our office on the second floor of Div Hall to see these works in-person.
Silwan (1st Place)
Shosh Lovett-Graff, MTS '23
In Silwan, East Jerusalem, where this photo was taken, we learned about settlers seizing property, aided by the government. Palestinians whose homes are declared illegal are forced to demolish their own multi-generational homes. Often, community members would come out tosupport the family in these acts of destruction, love interposed against violence. The Arabic mural reads, “We won’t leave. On this land is the most sacred land.”
Camel Turns Holy Well (2nd Place)
Maggie Thielens, MTS '23
In Kairouan, Tunisia, a camel draws water from the holy well Bir Barouta, which dates to the 17th century. Water is crucial to the history and architecture of Kairouan and continues to reflect the many spiritual aspects of its public life today.
Haifa (3rd Place)
Shosh Lovett-Graff, MTS '23
This photo depicts a destroyed Palestinian cultural space and theater in Haifa, Israel, a gathering place for Palestinian art and community before 1948. I thought about the multiplicities of "danger": the space, filled with broken glass and debris; the space, a danger to the state because it centered creativity and joy.
Honorable Mentions
Walled Off from Holy Sites and Human Rights
Ciara Moezidis, MTS, MALD '24
A mural on the annexation/apartheid wall in Bethlehem captures one of the many struggles Palestinians face under apartheid. Although the holiest place on Earth for so many faith traditions, the land is also home to an assortment of human rights violations — including the fact that many Palestinians cannot leave the West Bank and worship at the holiest of sites.
Western Wall
Sean Lau, J.D. '22
Street art on the separation wall that divides the West Bank from Israel. A mile south from where this photo was taken is the Church of the Nativity, which marks where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus was born. A picture, in the photo, depicting the Virgin Mary and Jesus with barbed wire around their heads instead of halos pointedly melds the religious significance of Bethlehem with the violence faced each day by its residents.
Finding God at the Berlin Wall
Mayank Kumar, MTS '23
This photo is of street art painted on a surviving segment of the Berlin wall known as the East Side Gallery. The dedication on the right side of the work noted that the piece was painted to remember the courage of a queer Afro-German woman who was attacked by a neo-Nazi in the Berlin metro in 1990. After the fall of the wall, racially motivated attacks and hate crimes increased against religious minorities, BIPOC, and queer people. The work was painted to honor the courage of these communities as a whole. The art, on a public and historic street in a historic city, urges us to examine and embrace the divinity of minoritized folks who are the most vulnerable in society. It urges us to reconsider whose bodies are valued. It is an example of how public art can ask us to question the role of religion implicated with social identities such as race, gender, and sexuality in our contemporary moment.
Three Figures for Freedom
Htaywai Naing, MTS '23
The three-figured salute is a symbol of resistance and solidarity with the people of Myanmar fighting for freedom, democracy, human rights and just peace. His holiness 14th Dalai Lama is a symbol of religious peace for all of humanity. Dalai Lama puts his hand on the Burmese Rohingya activist, Aung Kyaw Moe, now the advisor for National Unity Government's (NUG) Ministry of Human Rights.
In the Shadow of the Church
Maggie Thielens, MTS '23
Behind a church in La Goulette, Tunisia, sits a sports betting center, ''Easybet." Religion and gambling are both prevalent in Tunisian public life, though normative assumptions of religion often consider them at odds.