Photo Forum Beirut Second Session: Call for submission

Zico House and Photo-Festivals invite you to the second session of Photo Forum Beirut on Tuesday 16th March 2010


**Format of the sessions

Selected photographers will have a chance to experience speaking about their work in public, to articulate concerns, aims and plans for their photography and to ask opinions in an open environment.
We strongly encourage feedback from the attending audience.

The second session will take place at Zico House on 16th March 2010 from 19.00 to 21.00.

For each session we will invite an international external selector to choose the photographers who will present and discuss their work.
Next session's selector is the Brazilian photo collective Cia de Foto.


** Talk

Every month, Photo Forum Beirut invites a local or visiting host to speak about a specific issue related to photography practice.

For our second session, Ibrahim Sleiman from Paladium will open the session and talk about his work as a printer.

Ibrahim Sleiman is a technical printer based in Beirut. He is the owner of Paladium, one of Lebanon's leading photographic printing and finishing centres he established in 1998 in Hamra. Sleiman is behind the printing and finishing of most of the photo exhibitions in Lebanon.


** Submission process

Theme: THE CITY

Deadline EXTENDED: from 1st February to 10th March 2010

The session will benefit photographers who do not have access to regular feedback and are willing to receive specialist and peer-led critique of their work.
Please note that the session is NOT for exhibiting printed pictures; selected photographers will show their work or series related to this month theme in either slide or digital projection.

TO APPLY for the second session of Photo Forum Beirut, please follow the following steps:

- create a Photoshelter Starter free account:

- upload your photographs (up to 20 images of up to 1024 pixels on the longest side, and a file size NO larger than 500 kb);

- share your gallery with photoforumbeirut@gmail (not familiar with Photoshelter? Follow the 3 first “Getting started” steps);

- name your gallery with your Name and Surname;

- email us a short biography, a presentation text or artist statement about your work.

Pictures of the first session of the Photo Forum Beirut

About 100 curious have attended our first session on Tuesday 19th January!

We have been victim of our own success and were not prepared to welcome such a crowd.
Thanks so much for coming and for your contributions to the discussion!

Apologies to attendees who were on the back of the room, and people who turned up and could not find any room...
We are indeed looking forward to welcoming you again to the next session on 16th February.

Herewith some pictures of the first session of Photo Forum Beirut at Zico House:


Many thanks to our brave selected photographers Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Christina Rahme, Federico De Nardo, Lara Zankoul and Nadim Bou Habib, who brilliantly opened this first session and generously donate a photograph for our raffle.

Special thanks to Cia de Foto for sharing with us their very inspiring artwork 'Caixa de Sapato' and to Yasmina Reggad for leading this session.

By the way, we have announced next international external selector for the next session of Photo Forum Beirut. Cia de Foto will select photographers who will be showing and discussing their work on Tuesday 16th February.
Ibrahim Sleiman from Paladium will be our guest-speaker of the month with an introduction on his work as a printer.

More to come on our second session very soon.
Meanwhile, save the date and we hope to welcome you on the 16th February!

Selected Photographers #1

Photo Forum Beirut is thrilled to announce names of selected photographers for the first session


We received 23 submissions and this first session's selector Yasmina Reggad was pleased to have the opportunity of seeing all these works and discovering new photographers from which she has selected five.

We wish unselected photographers every success with future submissions to the Photo Forum Beirut and invite them to join us on Tuesday.

Next session's selector and guest-speaker will be unveiled on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, we are pleased to tell more about the five selected photographers who will present their work on Tuesday 19th, 7pm at Zico House.


** Anastasia Taylor-Lind

© Anastasia Taylor-Lind

Anastasia will show her series "No Friends but the Mountains": Women of the PKK Guerrillas, Iraq/Turkey border, Kurdistan

[...] In the 1980s, among the ranks of the guerrilla fighters of the PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party, there were reported to be a dozen women fighting. While figures are inexact, one commander told us as many as 10,000 PKK soldiers are amassing in mountain camps just across the Iraqi border, risking their lives in daily spats with the Turkish army – the military representatives of a government they accuse of unmerciful human rights atrocities and the suppression of a nation of 14 million people. However, what is not widely reported is that a third of these Kurdish combatants are women – a phenomenon perhaps without precedent.

In all recent conflicts, from Bosnia to Palestine, women have been amongst those killed fighting, but has there ever been such an exodus of women leaving village life and their families, to take up arms in a foreign land?

Each had a story about the family they had left behind, and although they come from diverse backgrounds, and often from different countries, each had an experience that has driven their decision to fight and was at the heart of their belief in the PKK cause. And each believed that the sacrifices they had made, in leaving their homes and committing to a life which precludes marriage and having children, was worthwhile.
(Text by Katie Scott)

Anastasia Taylor-Lind is a young English photojournalist who is part of the VII Photo Agency mentor program under the guidance of Ron Haviv. She is based in Damascus where she works for clients such as The Sunday Times Magazine, Marie Claire and GEO Germany.
Anastasia’s work has been exhibited internationally, in spaces such as The Frontline Club in London, Oude Kerk in Amsterdam and the Lodz Photo festival in Poland.
Anastasia has won a number of photography awards including The Guardian Photography prize in 2006. She recently won the Canon Young Photographer Award 2009 for the best photography project.

More about Anastasia Taylor-Lind's work on: www.anastasiataylorlind.com


** Lara Zankoul

@ Lara Zankoul

Lara will show a selection of photographs from "365 project"

This series is part of a bigger project called the "365 project", which consists in taking a picture a day. I started this project on September 14th 2009, because I wanted to dedicate more time everyday to something I loved. This project turned to be a journey to see how far I could push myself and push my boundaries while experimenting with photography.
Here I am today, 125 pictures have been taken and I am still learning, trying and pushing my self.
My photographs are personal and intuitive images that express a certain state of mind, feelings, thoughts or philosophies. Among them are some pictures I took for a specific cause, such as global actions like the AIDS Awareness Day.
My photography is mainly conceptual. I like to convey the big picture through subtle things, like a movement, the lighting, or a part of a bigger thing. Art is not the representation of a beautiful thing, but the beautiful representation of things. When I see a very common setting, I make it beautiful in my mind and try to capture this with photography.
A picture speaks a thousand words.

Lara Zankoul was born in 1987 in Lebanon, lived in KSA and came back to Lebanon when she was 17 years old.
She studied economics at Notre Dame University, where she took an introductory course to photography as a free elective. She bought her first camera in June 2009 and has been passionate about photography since then. She is currently working in the business field as a researcher. Lara started to work as a freelance photographer in December 2009. She is still exploring the photography world through her "365" project on Flickr.



** Nadim Bou Habib

@Nadim Bou Habib

Nadim will show a selection of photographs from the series "Par-dessus les rails"

Nadim Bou Habib made a documentary about a forgotten railway, built a century ago by the Ottomans, traveling between Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iran, in a way to reveal its secrets.
The photographs bring a touching approach to his subject, regardless of its location or ethnicities in the Middle East.
" It's like a blood vessel that transports oxygen to all parts of the body without any distinction."

Nadim Bou Habib was born in Lebanon in 1982. Ever since he was a child, he was fascinated by photography, led by his curiosity and sense of adventure.
He gave up his studies in medicine and shifted to photography. It was here that he found his true passion. He graduated 2 years ago with a BA in photography from the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
His work has been displayed in several international magazines, Asian Geographic Passport, Alef Mag, Soura Magazine. He now works in his own studio and is based in Beirut.

More about Nadim Bou Habib's work on: www.nadimbouhabib.com (under construction)



** Christina Rahme

@ Christina Rahme

Christina will show two series of fashion photographs

Fascinated by the world of imagination and fantasy - the world of creative photography, I built my fashion photography around this. My 2 series presented here were based on different concepts. The first, a commission for a "maison de couture", was based on the theme “Movement,” inspired by the loose, fluid and modern dresses. I wanted to portray a free bride rebelling, hence the choice of the movement.
The second series, a personal fashion project under the theme “Shoes.” In this project I worked on a relationship duality: in one hand, the women between each others, and on the other hand women' relationship with shoes.

Lebanese photographer Christina Rahme graduated with a M.A. in photography from USEK, in 2000. In her work, she focuses on enhancing the beauty of her subjects through light and creative photography as well as drawing the viewers into a world of imagination and fantasy.
Her most recent photo shoots include fashion commissions for magazines such as ELLE oriental, Aishti magazine and Gossip as well as various fashion designers. She has also worked on different advertising and promotional campaigns with advertising agencies such as Grey Worldwide and Impact BBDO.
Based in Beirut, she travels throughout the Middle East region for commissions.
Christina had the opportunity to work with world-renowned photographer Andre Rau as well as join various internships in Paris

More about Christina Rahme's work on: www.christinarahme.com (under construction)

*** Federico De Nardo

@ Federico De Nardo

Federico will show a selection of his series "Welcome to Lebanese"

The title "Welcome to Lebanese" has been inspired by the sentence many Lebanese taxi drivers at the International airport of Beirut use as they welcome visitors.

This series is a combination of portraits of different Lebanese characters from all over the country, combined with photographs of their working spaces.

During my ongoing stay in Lebanon, a country with much resemblance to my homeland Italy, I started a photographic research through which I tried to understand Lebanon. In this project, I aimed to capture the portraits of people from different parts of the country, coming from different social and religious backgrounds in order to emphasise the resemblance in their differences.

In my project, I was inspired by the photography book Un Paese - Portrait of an Italian Village by Paul Strand and Italian writer Cesare Zavattini. Through his images, Strand captures the immediacy of life and universal rhythm of Luzzara, Zavattini’s birthplace, yet quite unknown but radiant village in Italy’s Po Valley. Strand’s work expresses a deep connection between the lines in the faces of people he portrays and the places where they live, work and belong to, something I aimed to capture in my own view of Lebanon.

Federico De Nardo was born in Italy. He studied Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Engineering.
His background as a photographer comes from an Msc. in fine art printing and zonal system and several years of self-learning.
He has his personal show “H2O2” in 1998, and several collective exhibitions.
He worked as assistant photographer for Luca Capuano Studio in 2005 and used to teach black and white fine art printing and history of photography in several privates schools in Bologna and Florence.
He worked in several tropical and subtropical countries he tries to understand through the lens of his camera and to translate into photography language.

Yasmina Reggad is supported by:

First session of Photo Forum Beirut

Zico House and Photo-Festivals are thrilled to launch the first session of Photo Forum Beirut on the 19th January 2010


Photo Forum is an evening event offering and promoting a critical space within the photography community in Beirut.
Once ever two monthes, established and emerging photographers will have the opportunity to project and discuss their work with their peers and specialists in a public environment at Zico House.
Everyone is welcome to attend, get involved in the discussion and discover new bodies of work.

**Format of the sessions

Selected photographers will have a chance to experience speaking about their work in public, to articulate concerns, aims and plans for their photography and to ask opinions in an open environment.
We strongly encourage feedback from the attending audience.

The session will begin at 19.00 on 19th January 2010 giving all photographers 5 minutes to present their work, followed by a discussion with the attending public.


** Talk

© Cia de Foto, "Caixa de Sapato" 2008

Every month, Photo Forum Beirut at Zico House will also invite a local or visiting host to speak about a specific issue related to photography practice.

For the first session, Photo Forum Beirut will host a special screening of Cia de Foto's artwork "Caixa de Sapato".
The screening will be followed by a short presentation of the concept of photo collective by Yasmina Reggad.

Cia de Foto is a photo collective launched in 2003 and based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Yasmina Reggad is a London-based curator, founder and director of the not-for-profit organization Photo-Festivals.





Yasmina Reggad is supported by:


We would like to thank the Photographers' Gallery Folio Forum, Photo Forum London and Four Corners' Photo Forum for indirectly inspiring and giving a framework to the first session of the Photo Forum Beirut at Zico House.

Submission process

The session will benefit photographers who do not have access to regular feedback and are willing to receive specialist and peer-led critique of their work.

Please note that the session is not for showcasing portfolios; selected photographers will show a specific work or series of up to 20 photographs in either slide or digital projection.

To apply for the first session of Photo Forum Beirut, please create a Photoshelter Starter free account; upload your photographs (up to 20 images of up to 1052 pixels on the longest side, and a file size NO larger than 500 kb); and follow the 3 first “Getting started” steps (http://www.photoshelter.com/mem/home/help/tut) to share your gallery with photoforumbeirut@gmail. Please note that the gallery must be named with your Name and Surname.

DEADLINE to apply: 15th January 2010