The Samira Munayer Archive​

 

The Samira Munayer Archive was initiated by Guez’s studio in 2006, originating from photographs, albums, and documents belonging to the al-Munayer family, his maternal family in Lydda. Many of these materials had survived periods of rupture, displacement, and restricted mobility, passing through domestic spaces and shared places of refuge before being preserved for decades in shoe boxes beneath his grandparents’ bed. Their preservation became the starting point for an archive that gradually expanded through contributions from other Palestinian families and communities.

 

Through processes of preservation, scanning, digitization, and cataloguing, the archive developed into an evolving collection of photographs and documentary materials, with a particular focus on the first half of the twentieth century. Its holdings trace personal and familial histories across Lydda, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gaza, Amman, and elsewhere, following the movement and dispersion of Palestinian communities across the Mediterranean region and beyond. While rooted in a specific family and locality, the archive extends beyond singular religious, geographic, or social categories.

 

The archive is named after Guez’s grandmother, Samira Munayer (1930–2025), whose lifelong preservation of the al-Munayer family’s photographs and documents made possible the collection from which the archive emerged. Initially known as the Christian Palestinian Archive (CPA), its early development was connected to the Greek Orthodox community in Lydda, which helped gather photographic and documentary materials through its church and community centers. The archive subsequently expanded beyond this initial context through contributions from Palestinian families and communities across different religious and geographic backgrounds. Following Samira Munayer’s passing, the archive was renamed in her memory.

 

The collection includes photographs of engagements, weddings, holidays, public celebrations, and other occasions for which photographers were specifically invited, alongside studio portraits, passport photographs, postcards, maps, handwritten notes, and other vernacular materials. Together, these objects register forms of everyday image-making as well as the social worlds in which photographs were produced, exchanged, preserved, and inherited.

 

The archive approaches the historical photograph not only as an image, but as a material object shaped by the conditions of its production and circulation. Attention is given to surfaces, textures, inscriptions, damage, traces of time, and successive modes of reproduction and digitization. Preservation is therefore understood not as a neutral process, but as one that continually affects how images are encountered and how knowledge is transmitted across generations.

 

Rather than attempting to construct a complete historical record, the Samira Munayer Archive remains an evolving repository shaped by what has survived, what has disappeared, and what continues to be contributed. Personal photographs and documents become points of entry into histories that exceed the individual families from which they originated.

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Samira Munayer Scholarship Program

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Named in honor of Samira Munayer, the program supports Palestinian women pursuing higher education in art and related fields. Samira studied at the Christian School for Girls in Jaffa during the 1930s, in the very building where her grandson, Dor Guez, now lives and works. Established in recognition of her lifelong belief in the value of education, the scholarship promotes greater access to higher education for Palestinian women and supports future generations of artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners.

 

The program is administered in collaboration with Guez’s mother, Violet Munayer, an educator engaged in developing educational programs for minority communities and advancing civil rights.

 

Operating alongside the Samira Munayer Archive within Guez’s studio, the scholarship extends Samira Munayer’s legacy of preservation, education, and cultural continuity. Together, the archive and scholarship connect the preservation of personal histories and community memories with investment in future generations, ensuring that the past remains accessible while creating new opportunities for artistic, intellectual, and cultural development.