Scenes of Borrowed Faces: Al-Sharq Bookstore, no. 1– 5

2020 - Photography (Photography)
(Each): 70 x 50 cm

Borrowed Faces is a photo novel published in 2019. These framed colour photographs are selected scenes from the novel. They mimic the aesthetic of a dated comic strip but instead contain vibrantly coloured, digital photos; here the ‘live’ element of the photographic medium meets the theatrics of the graphic novel. The work traces cultural practices during the Cold War period from the 1950s and 60s which coincided with one of the richest and most critical periods in the MENA region. Revisiting archives and making them accessible while delving deep into the complex and multi-layered histories of cultural production and the socio-political conditions we find ourselves in today, the story takes place in publishing institutions and bookshops, as well as in the homes of historical figures working in culture during the cold war and problematizes the history and legacy of issues of nationalism, political ideology, knowledge production and cultures of dominance. Following the lives of three young women connected by publishing in Beirut in the 1960s, it weaves together common interests, exchanges of ideas, and stories of love and frivolity while providing an insight into the inner struggles of a cultural environment dominated by patriarchy and the powers of money and politics. While contextualized in a very specific time period, the work maintains a timeless quality, interrogating questions of power, language and knowledge that are as pressing today as they ever were.

Fehras Publishing Practices is a collective founded by Sami Rustom, Omar Nicolas and Kenan Darwich that was established in 2015. It’s a space for knowledge, exchange of experiences and collective work. They research the history and presence of publishing and its entanglements in socio-political and cultural sphere in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Arab Diaspora. They focus on the relationship between publishing and art historiography and explore the role of translation as a tool of cultural domination, solidarity and deconstructing colonial powers. Fehras’s practice comes through studying archival material such as books, magazines, photographs, memoirs, letters, contemporary art publications, libraries of authors, translators, book vendors as well as radio, television, cinema and digital archives. They take this archival material and re-situate them by placing them in different spatial and temporal contexts. Working in different media, from installations to video works, books/publications and lecture performances they tackle current day concerns such as gender, collectivity, identity, migration, notions of independency, funding and institutions.

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