Born of Sand + 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, Slovakian photographer Petra Bašnáková 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 Bašnáková’s journey of getting to know them and becoming accepted by the Bedouin community.