Nubia
Heisa Island, Aswan, Egypt, 2014 - 2016
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In 1902 Nubians were forcibly displaced from their lands when the Aswan Low Dam was built by the British colonizers, and again in 1960, after Egypt’s independence, with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Aswan High Dam. With the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the formation of Lake Nasser, to its south, the Nubians ancestral land was completely submerged forcing the exodus of the population of Old Nubia. 120,000 Nubians who lived, fished and cultivated these lands for thousands of years were forcibly uprooted and relocated to resettlement communities.
Heisa Island is situated at the former First Cataract of the Nile River in historic Nubia within the Aswan Governorate of southern Egypt. Heisa is the largest island between the Aswan Low Dam and the Aswan High Dam south of Aswan. While other villages surrounding the island were evacuated from the area upon the construction of the Aswan High Dam, Heisa's people stayed, moving to higher ground instead while most of their farmland was lost under water.
The photographs document the landscape of Heisa Island and Nubia along the Nile River in Egypt.