This is not a love song
The Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography Gallery presents ‘This is not a love song’
- The Empty quarter Fine Art Photography Gallery proudly presents ‘This is not a love song’ featuring six emerging photographers and one common denominator: the current state of Palestine;
- The exhibition opening is on March 9th, 7 pm- 10 pm, and will run until April 4th;
- The exhibition is a tribute to the few people on the planet who stand still to the test of time and tyranny;
- The exhibition includes works by Hady Sy, Noel Jabbour, Raed Bawayah, Steve Sabella, Richard Mosse and Sama Alshaibi.
Dubai- The Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography gallery proudly presents ‘This is not a love song’ an exhibition co-curated by Elie Domit and Hester Keijser, featuring six emerging photographers and one common denominator: the current state of Palestine. The exhibition opening is on March 9th, 7 pm- 10 pm, and will run until April 4th.
This is not a love song. This is not a theme exhibition. This is not a curators’ statement. This is a tribute to the few people on the planet who stand still to the test of time and tyranny, who do not bow down, blend in or give up, instead who show a tenacity and force of will and who have a defiant soul that cannot be crushed. These are the people who give hope because they do not pretend that there is an exit from the human condition, but who nevertheless want a solution. These are the people who keep reinventing themselves every time they get crushed to the ground.
‘This is not a love song’ is a gathering of voices and views, of positions taken and abandoned, issuing forth from and reflecting back on the situation Palestinians are facing on a day to day basis. We do not feign to give a comprehensive overview of contemporary Palestinian fine art photography. To comprehend this field, one must first apprehend the situation, and exactly that which is the nexus of the Palestinian question: that no one ever agrees on what is actually the case. We don’t get the picture, instead we get many pictures and perspectives, filtered through individual experiences, national interests, global politics, religious wars- with some of these perspectives being marketed more aggressively than others.
Amidst this turmoil of vying factions forever demanding we show our true colours, all that we bring is our bleeding heart. Yet if that is what it takes to be political, then the works brought together for ‘This is not a love song’ are political to the core. There is a stubborn insistence to make up one’s own mind and a decided refusal to be made party to the interests of others. We find a need to engage with the growing number of those forced to make a home amidst the ruins. We see an aversion against the spectacular outfit which the struggle for power dons for the eyes of the world. We sense a deeply felt conviction, that it is of utmost importance that we keep resisting the voices telling us that life is dispensable, who want us to forget that the only proportion that sets the scale is the human one. Art may not be able to change the real reality of life lived in conflict areas, what it can do is silently point out what we should not lose in sight of our struggle to survive.
Artist Biography:
Hady Sy (1964) is French, with a Lebanese mother and a Senegalese father, and is proud of his background, as his father is an eminent theologian and raised his children to show respect for others, for their religions and cultural differences. As a young student in Beirut in the grips of civil war, he had to cope with increasing rivalry, violence, hatred and even death. Since the time when he was taken hostage and threatened with execution, he has seen the image of the deadly weapon pointed at his temple, and has been going over the image in his mind. Hady Sy has used all his talent as an artist to serve a cause, speaking out against murders committed in the name of blind religious fanaticism.
Noel Jabbour is a Palestinian artist photographer born 1970 in Narareth. She studied in jerusalem and is now based in Berlin, Germany. For more than fifteen years she has been placing the marginal at centre stage in her artistic work. Her photographs consistently expose a human dimension, an angle of vision, or a profound insight which is usually unseen or ignored. She performs one of art’s important tasks: rendering visible what is otherwise invisible. Jabbour’s art-making praxis has a transformative dimension as well: it expands our range of vision and shows us things that are important to see. Her work derives its power from a deliberate affinity with documentary photography and is represented in major public and private collections.
Raed Bawayah was born in Palestine in 1971, and graduated in 2004 from the Musrara school of photography in Jerusalem, he currently lives and works in Paris.
Working in different countries, Raed Bawayah always takes into consideration the people ignored by the national and international community. Raed Bawayah has developed a special interest for the people considered as “marginalised.” Bawayah says, “In a time when the overwhelming majority of Palestinian photographers are caught in the grip of photojournalism and provides daily coverage of the conflict in occupied territories, I choose a different approach.”
Steve Sabella, born in Jerusalem in 1975, is a London based artist. Steve Sabella studied art photography at the jerusalem School of Photography and the New Media, and holds a BA in Visual Arts from the State University of New York. Sabella received his first MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster and his second MA in Art Business at Sotheby’s institute of Art in London.
Steve Sabella’s art has been exploring notions of imagined cities, hyper-relativities and the relationship of the subconscious mind with reality since the early 1990’s. Having realised that Jerusalem, Sabella’s city of birth exists no more, he started perceiving the harsh reality of living in ‘exile’ or as an alien. Jerusalem in exile explored the mental image Palestinians held of Jerusalem and has gained international attention, leading to its production into a short story documentary film. Consequently, Sabella is currently giving a visual form through photomontage to the ‘state of mind’ of living in ‘mental exile.’
Richard Mosse is an Irish artist based in New York. He is currently working internationally with the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts. Mosse received an MFA in photography from yale University in 2008. H is represented by Jack Shainma Gallery. In the coming year, Mosse’s work will be showing at Fotofest 2010 Biennial (Houston), Museu de Mataro (Barcelona), and the Musee d’Elysee (Lausanne.)
Sama Alshaibi is an artist born in Basara, Iraq to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother, and is now a naturalised American citizen. Alshaibi’s photography, video, film and performance works evoke the language of suffering, displacement and loss. She often uses her own body as both a protagonist and a site, linking struggles and the way that nations have affected and twisted lives in bodily performances. Her auto-ethnographic approach is informed by her own history of living in war, the double negation to her familial homelands and her countless encounters with those policing borders from the undesired.
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What is The Empty Quarter Gallery?The Empty Quarter Gallery’s mission is to create a world-class independent art gallery highlighting Fine Art photography from the exclusive to the extraordinary. The artwork displayed will showcase the rich culture, history and talents of the region as well as accomplished international artists.
Who is Hester Keijser? Hester Keijser is a visual artist and independent photography specialist currently based in the Netherlands. She studied at Sweet Briar College, Virginia, USA prior to receiving an MA in philosophy from the Universteit Leiden. Operating as mrs. deane, she authors a globally acclaimed blog on contemporary photography practices with a strong bias towards the European and Middle Eastern region. She is a frequent contributor to the Empty Quarter gallery, and currently works on a new book on Oman. Her work has had long time support from the prestigious Dutch National Fund for the Arts, Design and Architecture, and is part of many private and public collections.
For more information on this press release, please contact:
Kiera Purdue
StickyGinger PR
Email: kiera@stickygingerpr.com
Tel: +971 50 34 33 275
OR
Lucy Freeman
StickyGinger PR
Email: lucy@stickygingerpr.com
Tel: +971 50 95 32 344
For further information on the gallery and photography, please contact:
Elie Domit
Creative Director
The Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography Gallery
DIFC
Gate Village Building 02
P.O.Box 506697
Tel: +971 50 55 33 879
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