Thursday, May 13, 2010

Selected Photographers #3

Photo Forum Beirut is thrilled to announce names of selected photographers for the second session, which theme is: RELATIONSHIP

Second session's selectors Yumi Goto is pleased she had the opportunity to see the submitted works and discover new photographers. The selection for this session was limited to three. We wish the others every success with future submissions to the Photo Forum Beirut and invite them to join us on Tuesday.

We are pleased to introduce the three selected photographers who will present their work on Tuesday 18th May at 7pm at Zico House.


** Roubaye Korab

© Roubaye Korab

Roubaye will show a series of portraits she did on Old Maids in Lebanon

My mum's aunt was an old maid. She died 2 years ago. After her death, I was wondering why she never got married. Will I be like her one day? Many questions came to my mind about the way an old maid lives, her psychological state, her position in the society, and what does marriage mean to her. Society looks at these old maids with pity as if they spoiled their lives. I decided to enter their world; I photographed these old ladies who crossed the 60 years of age wearing like a Bride: A moment they've never lived.

Roubaye Korab is an independent photographer born in 1987. In 2009, she receives her BA in Photography from the Universite Saint Esprit Kaslik. She has participated in the IHPE07 (International Heritage Photographic Experience 07.) She is currently based in Beirut, working on different commissions as well as her personal projects.


** Bryan Denton

© Bryan Denton

Bryan will show a series of Black and White Photographs about Hezbollah's Mahdi Scouts

This work is part of an ongoing project about Hezbollah's Mahdi Scouts. For me, as a Beirut-based photographer working primarily for The New York Times, and other international media, this project has been a window for me into Hezbollah's relationship with many of the youth in the Lebanese Shia community in the South—many of whom represent the organizations next generation.

Bryan Denton is a freelance photojournalist based in Beirut, Lebanon. He began his career covering news, conflict and social issues after graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, focusing on photography and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. Bryan has been a contributing photographer with the New York Times since 2005, and his work has also been featured on the pages of TIME, Newsweek, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, Der Spiegel, The National, Courrier International, The Globe and Mail, and The New Republic and he has recently completed assignments in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq and Haiti.

More about Bryan's work on: Bryan Denton


** Odette Makhlouf

@ Odette Makhlouf

Odette will show photographs of her cousin's wedding in Syria

Few months ago I got a phone call, my cousin was getting married. Three days later I was in a taxi on my way to Homs Syria. My mother is Syrian, all her relatives are still there, yet the last time I‘ve been there was ten years ago. I always had mixed feeling towards this country: In a way I couldn’t get over the Lebanese war period and the Syrian interventions, yet a string kept me attached to this land that stayed authentic, and kept its soul. Through the marriage ceremony I felt an urge to document the complexity of relationships: the show, the emotions, traditions and religion.

Lebanese Odette Makhlouf holds a diploma in cinema studies from the Universite Saint Esprit – Kaslik and a master’s degree in cinema and audio-visual studies from Paris 8 – France. Since then she has been working on different feature films and TV commercials.







Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Photo Forum Beirut launch Open Forum #1

Zico House, Photo-Festivals and Photo Forum Beirut are thrilled to launch the first Open Forum with photographer Eugenie Dolberg on Sunday 16th May

Open Forum will be a spontaneous evening events hosting talks by photography practitioners and projection of photography artworks.

To launch our first
Open Forum, we have invited photographer Eugenie Dolberg and filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi to talk about the photography project Open Shutters Iraq and read from the eponymous photo book published in March by Trolley Books.
The talk will take place at
Zico House on Sunday 16th May at 7pm.


Photographs from Open Shutters Iraq project will also be exhibited at UMAM from 14th May, 6pm.
Filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi who followed the project, created a 102-minute documentary which will be screened at Metropolis Art Cinema on Monday 17th May, 8pm.


*** About Eugenie Dolberg and Maysoon Pachachi

Eugenie Dolberg is a photographer who developed Open Shutters to teach photography not only as a medium of documentation, but as a way to share ideas and emotional experiences. She lives between London and Tehran.


Maysoon Pachachi
is an
Iraqi filmmaker, editor for television documentaries and dramas and documentaries director. She has time teaching film and video directing and editing in Jerusalem and Gaza for the Jerusalem Film Institute and Med Media, a program of the European Union and at Birzeit University in Ramallah. Pachachi currently lives in Britain, and plans to create a school and a film festival in Baghdad.


*** About Open Shutters Iraq photography project



"I open my eyes in the morning…I see the gun by my bed I toss and turn and then close my eyes so I don’t see the gun…and I go to sleep at night. My husband and I go to sleep “decent” these days. We worry that someone will attack us, the distance between me and my husband has started to grow, we no longer talk before we sleep, nor do we laugh together in the morning…there is no space for anything but anxiety."
©
Lu'lu'a, Kirkuk /Index On Censorship/Open Shutters

The Open Shutters Iraq photography project began in 2006 when photojournalist Eugenie Dolberg gathered a group of Iraqi women in Damascus for a month to teach them how to take photographs. The 12 women shared their life stories, talking about their joys and opening up about surviving wars, death threats and kidnappings. They later returned to Iraq, where they used their newfound strength in photography to capture their stories.


*** About Open Shutters Iraq photography book



Open Shutters Iraq is a book of nine photographic essays and writing by women from all over Iraq. The thread of contemporary Iraqi history emerges through their tales of war, sanctions, intifada, siege, kidnapping, grief, love, happiness, times of resistance, achievements and small triumphs.

Dolberg, frustrated by the lack of journalistic access in Iraq and subsequent coverage of the war, decided to find a way for Iraqi women to tell their story in their own voices, the human reality of war, behind the collective headlines.
As Irada Zaydan, the Iraqi Project Manager who quit her job as a professor at the University of Baghdad to work on this project, and risked her life on several occasions says, 'This is not a project, this is a dream. A dream I want to live for my daughter. So she can grow up and understand what is truly happening now.'

Trolley Books is a leading independent publisher committed to issues germane to contemporary society in art, photography and reportage.
In the nine years since its inception in 2001 Trolley has established itself as an innovative and exciting imprint recognised for its diverse and often daring range of photography and art books, its high quality of production and design, and most of all for its commitment to the integrity of its publications.
Recognition has come in part from the numerous prestigious awards it has received, from such institutions as the Infinity Award of the ICP in New York, Rencontres D’Arles, Pictures of the Year International, the American Photography Awards, PDN and Photo Eye, and also from a more than positive reception by the domestic and international media. Trolley also received a commendation for its services to photography book publishing at
the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards.