DUBAI: The Middle East Institute in Washington DC is hosting works by female photographers from the Arab world. 

Tasneem Al-Sultan 

‘Diversity Within Saudi Weddings’ 

The acclaimed Lebanon-born Palestinian-American photographer Rania Matar has curated “Louder Than Hearts,” an exhibition of work by 10 female photographers, including herself, from the Arab world and Iran that runs at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC until October 4. Saudi Arabia is represented by Riyadh-based “visual storyteller and photographer” Tasneem Al-Sultan, specifically her “Saudi Tales of Love” series, which, the MEI says, is “informed by her personal journey through marriage and divorce.” 

In wedding images such as this one, Al-Sultan “depicts the constructs and expectations of marriage, including the elaborate ceremonies, as well as the various societal constraints the Saudi women she photographed faced and triumphed over” and “delves into the complexities of relationships and the interplay of tradition and individual choice.”  

The series has garnered global recognition for Al-Sultan, featuring in Time’s “Lightbox” photo series and the international photography fair Paris Photo. 

Rania Matar 

‘Farah (In Her Burnt Car)’ 

Matar’s photography, the MEI states, “captures intimate moments that transcend borders and cultures and explores themes of personal and collective identity through photos of women in the US and the Middle East.” 

The series to which this image belongs — “Where Do I Go? Fifty Years Later” — began after the devastating explosion in Beirut Port in August 2020, and the title alludes to the fact that 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Lebanon’s civil war. The wave of emigration that followed the 2020 explosion was “akin to that of 1984-85 when a wave of young people including herself left the war-stricken country. By photographing these women, Matar was relating to their experiences and their dilemma of immigration (decades) later.” 

Rehaf Al-Batniji  

‘Malak’ 

This image comes from Paris-based, Gaza-born photographer Al-Batniji’s series titled “(Shatt) The Beach & (Shatta) The Chili Pepper,” a project that explores “the social and cultural anthropology” of her hometown. Shatta is a major ingredient in Palestinian cuisine, and “emblematic of Gaza, where life’s challenges can sting like this fiery spice,” while shatt is “the serene beach where residents seek solace and escape their daily reality.”  

Al-Batniji’s work, the MEI states, “offers an intimate portrayal of the territory, reflecting the struggles and intensity of life under siege, as well as the resilience and vibrancy of its communities with refreshing hopefulness. Al-Batniji rejects the brutal imagery of conflict and instead uses color as a tool of resistance.” 

Carmen Yahchouchi 

‘Victoria’ 

Mali-born Lebanese photographer Yahchouchi has work from three of her series in the exhibition, all of which “capture the enduring impact of the Lebanese Civil War on women, highlighting their pivotal roles in the middle of chaos and devastation,” the MEI’s promotional material states. “Her work offers glimpses into their resilience, strength and sacrifice as they navigated through tumultuous periods of history emerging as heroines within their communities and families and assuming new roles in the public sphere.” This piece is from her series “My Mother’s Gun,” and demonstrates Yahchouchi’s talent for photographing “the intimate spaces of human experience, inviting viewers into her subjects' unique worlds.” 

Tanya Habjouqa  

‘Inner Resistance’ 

The Jordanian photographer and journalist, who lives and works in East Jerusalem, “melds a mordant sense of irony with an unyielding examination of the repercussions of geopolitical conflicts on people’s lives,” according to the MEI. This image comes from her “Occupied Pleasures” series, which, the institute says, “presents a multidimensional portrayal of humanity’s ability to find joy amid adversity in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza, utilizing a sharp sense of humor about the absurdities produced by a 47-year occupation.” 

VENICE: For its second showing during the Venice Biennale, Qatar is staging the exhibition “Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices” that takes a profound, in-depth look at the last decade of film and video art by Arab, South Asian and African filmmakers.

While Qatar has yet to have its own national pavilion, its exhibition occupies the 459-year-old Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti on the Grand Canal. The works on show are drawn from the collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Contemporary Art, the Doha Film Institute and the forthcoming Art Mill Museum (scheduled to open in 2030). It is divided into ten galleries, each comprising films and video art according to a specific theme such as ruins, women’s voices, borders, exile and deserts and is curated by Paris-based Matthieu Orlean, a film and video expert. The exhibition will run until November 2024.

“Film is very relevant to our institutions and is an important part of our collections,” Zeina Arida, Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Arab Art in Doha, told Arab News.

“It is a great way to document our contemporary times,” she added. “Film is also a great way of to share who we are and what we are going through, what we as societies from these less represented countries are living and the issues we are facing.”

In-depth storytelling can be found in the films on view by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, Larissa Sansour, Fares Fayyad, Ali Cherri, Shaima Al-Tamimi, Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Hassan Khan and Sophia Al-Maria, among others.

In a documentary and largely journalistic style, many of the works shed light on current events and issues not often covered in mainstream media, including the now one-year old conflict in Sudan or migrants seeking new homes such as those captured in the film by Yemeni East African filmmaker Shaima Al-Tamini who charted the journey of her family from Kenya and Zanibar to the UAE.

“I was looking at movies that were different from the rest — that take a risk of telling their own story in a specific way,” curator Orlean told Arab News. “The filmmakers of these films are foreigners in their own environment because they are capturing events, whether personal or collective, that many people don’t see even in the news. Many deal with the themes of migration, social differences and exile.”

The works on view showcase both long and short films. A few highlights include Ali Cherri’s “The Dam” (2022), charting the story of a Darfuri seasonal worker from Sudan who works during the night to create a mud-brick monument. The film is a political fable that tells of the power of imagination against the backdrop of the Sudanese revolution. There is also Qatari artist Sophia Al-Maria’s well-known work “Black Friday” (2016) and British-born Egyptian multimedia artist Hassan Khan’s “Jewel” (2010) featuring a luminescent fish in dark waters followed by two men dancing to Arabic music.

“‘Jewel’ was triggered by a moment witnessed on the street in Cairo in 2006 — two men dancing around a speaker with raw, brutal and beautiful music blaring out,” Khan told Arab News. “It took four years before I could finally produce the work for Mathaf's opening exhibition in 2010 and by then so much was bubbling around us that it seemed to channel something real. Imagine a one second flickering daydream slowed down and stretched into six intense minutes. It is about our deepest sources — history, culture, emotion — and how we communicate the alien that lives inside all of us.”