Shay Lee Nissim | Ajami, 2022

The work examines the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa as both an everyday residential setting and a charged urban space, where movement, community, and festive moments coexist with neglect, decay, and social tensions.
Nissim, a long-time resident of the neighborhood, presents a cumulative perspective in the work—one that encompasses its multiplicity of states.
The photographed material, gathered over a long period, has been assembled into a visual mosaic of the neighborhood: Ramadan processions, bustling streets, and photogenic spaces alongside peeling walls, trash, and crumbling structures. The result is a visual sequence that allows the neighborhood to emerge as a complex whole, where each scene illuminates the others, deepening the sense of multiplicity and complexity.
The photographed material, gathered over a long period, has been assembled into a visual mosaic of the neighborhood: Ramadan processions, bustling streets and photogenic spaces, alongside dilapidated walls, trash and crumbling buildings. The result is a visual sequence that allows the neighborhood to emerge as a complex whole, where each scene illuminates the others and enhances the sense of multiplicity and complexity.
The magazine-style photographic setup creates an additional layer of viewing, allowing for a certain distance from the space—and, consequently, a critical reading of it. In doing so, the work oscillates between documentation and the language of design and imagery, examining the ways in which urban reality is mediated through an aesthetic gaze and the structure of the moving image.