Kinneret, Tel Aviv

Your Mirror: Portraits from the ICP Collection
Section: War
In 2002 Gillian Laub traveled to Israel to photograph those affected by the Second Intifada (2000–2005). Laub wanted to share personal stories of people living with violence on a
daily basis. These testimonies would serve as a counterbalance to the horrifying images that were spreading from the Middle East. One of the most moving portraits in the series Testimony is that of Kinneret, a radiant twenty-fiveyear-old woman, sitting on her bed in a body suit. Three years earlier she had been covering a shift in the bar where she worked, when a suicide bomber struck. Kinneret was burned to the extent that doctors did not think she would live. But she did. As Laub continued to document Kinneret’s recovery, she was struck by the young woman’s strength and optimism. Kinneret did not blame the person who inflicted her pain. In an interview with Laub she explains: “My goal is to show the world that the force of life is stronger than everything. And love—the will to live is all
that really matters. No religions, no borders, no nothing, just this.”