Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing

Kegham Djeghalian Senior immortalized Gaza. A photographer who survived the Armenian genocide, he established Gaza's first professional photography studio, "Photo Kegham," in 1944. Through portraits, official photographs, family albums, and scenes of daily life, his lens captured the history of the city, from the end of the British Mandate to the Israeli occupation. With this exhibition, his grandson, Kegham Djeghalian Junior, brings this heritage to light.

A visual artist and educator, Kegham Jr. discovered three red boxes in 2018, buried at the back of a closet in his father’s home. Filled with negatives, documents, and family mementos, they are the only surviving testimony of his grandfather's past. The photographs unveil forgotten faces and interrupted stories, revealing the intimate life of the city.

By refusing to caption these images, Kegham Jr. questions the notion of an archive and develops the concept of an "unfinished" or "unmade archive." Organized by typology, his photographic installation creates an implicit historiography. The exhibition *Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing* thus evokes a visual narrative where each photograph carries the memory of a city, a family, and a people, and where each shot reveals an intimate story brutalized by occupation, exile, and war.

As genocide continues, *Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing* becomes a necessary act to preserve the history, culture, and memories of the Palestinian people.