Arabian insights
A new exhibition at the Gallery of Photography challenges the images of the Islamic world that have been cultivated in the Western media. By Billy Leahy
With a constant flow of television and print media coverage of the Arab world and the events from that region over the past four years, the veil has been lifted from much of Islamic society for Western eyes. However, in terms of art and photography, there has been a noticeable dearth of works dealing with the region and exploring its cultural and social infrastructures and traditions.
The current exhibition at the Gallery of Photography aims to provide the first step in addressing these areas, with ten photographers from eight countries displaying their own original angle and viewpoint of the Arab World. The title of the show is Nazar, the Arabic word for 'insight', chosen to correspond with the exhibition's premise of challenging the increasingly homogenised ideas and images of the region that have been cultivated and developed in the media.
Nazar is an easily digestible photographic sound-bite that covers both the general and the specific, the individual and the collective as it delves into Arab society, examining traditions, constructs and current anxieties. Much of the latter – if we speak of concerns over insurgency, political instability and terrorism – is also shared by the West, and the work of Palestinian/Kuwaiti artist Tarek Al-Ghoussien plays on these fears.
His four self-portraits contain a dark humour that is immediately arresting and rakes up multiple questions for the viewer to answer. In each of the works, Al-Ghoussien appears in the image with his face shrouded in a scarf. In one portrait he determinedly skulks across an airport runway, a Boeing 737 in close proximity, while in other photos he is pictured in front of a lorry and shipping vessel or surveying an unnamed city across an expense of water. Each image plays on the aesthetic of an advertising campaign as Al-Ghou challenges clichéd views of Palestinians, heightened since September 11th.
Al-Ghoussien's work definitely locates itself at the artier end of the scale, and although there is a strong art element throughout the exhibition, many of the other works casually flitter between photojournalism and documentary photography. The mix is certainly an interesting one, but at times it can sit just a little awkwardly – much like some of the subjects in Rawi Hage's series Developing and the Underdeveloped. Hage photographed the occupants and the servants in upper-middle class homes, using a subtle dose of absurd humour to suggest that a national elite has merely replaced the former colonial elite in the region.
Poignant and well-constructed works dot the exhibition, with Gaston Zvi Ickowicz's poetic images of the wall Israel constructed out of fear of Palestinian attacks and 25 year old Benjamin Lowy's documentation of American military units in Iraq, for his series Preemptive War, standing out. Three photographers took Cairo as their location, with Randa Shaath examining the rooftop shantytowns of the city and the changing function of Egyptian capital's roofs – once a place for relaxation for the rich. American photographer Diana Matar focuses on the Islamic headscarf and its various connotations, meanings and symbols, while Hala Elkoussy questions the relationship between a photograph and reality by constructing staged scenes that appear to be real, everyday scenarios.
With such hugely divergent outlooks from each photographer in that one city alone, it is easy to see how Nazar, as an exhibition, might and does struggle to find a united angle. But if each series is approached individually, there are many valuable insights to be garnered from the exhibition.
?More Nazar continues until 29 January at the Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. 01 671 4654, www.irish-photography.com