In 2018, Israel marks the seventieth anniversary of statehood. Yet the events of 1948 are remembered very differently by the Palestinian people, who to this day carry the memory of the Naqba, the displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians from their territories during the 1948 Palestine war. In the seven decades since, there has been no lasting agreement to sort out the volatile political and social situation in the region, which looks likely to remain for many years to come.

Unresolved is the most recent photo-essay by renowned Swiss documentary photographer Meinrad Schade. A continuation of his War Without War project, in which Schade documented the lingering, damaging marks of war on the former Soviet Union, Unresolved explores the obvious traces of conflict and the scars it leaves on both the people and landscapes in Israel, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. Yet even more importantly, Schade brings home to the reader the sometimes more hidden symbols that can be found in daily life and that are simultaneously result and catalyst of the struggle. The captions—in English, German, Hebrew, and Arabic—highlight historic and current aspects of the conflict and invite readers to view it from different perspectives.

A thoughtful and sensitive photographic series, Unresolved offers an intimate look at the lasting impact of the conflict on the anniversary of its onset.

Longlist of the German Photobookaward 2018.

When does a war begin and when does it really end? Every war leaves traces, scars in the landscape and people’s resulting traumas are passed from one generation to the next. Post-war times can also become the years before a war.

Over ten years, Swiss photographer Meinrad Schade has recorded the precarious life oscillating between war and peace in parts of Russia, Chechnya and Ingushetia, in Kazakhstan, the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region, and in Ukraine. His portraits, still lifes, interiors, street scenes, and landscapes introduce the viewer to remote places and preliminary events. Schade’s images show the long-term effects of old conflicts on people.

This new book features a selection of some 160 images from Schade’s “War Without War” project. The essays tell the history of the countries and their conflicts, look at the decline and struggle for resurrection of the Soviet empire, and reflect on chances and limits of documentary photography.

War without War won a silver medal in the 2016 German Photo Book Award.