Publications: An Excerpt From the Book 'A Lebanese Archive'

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Jan 12, 2016 Lebanon
[Ania Dabrowska, A Lebanese Archive, Om Ashad Qara, Ashad Qara, and village children, Photo by Diab Alkarssifi, Slefa Village, Lebanon, 1984, 2015] [Ania Dabrowska, A Lebanese Archive, Om Ashad Qara, Ashad Qara, and village children, Photo by Diab Alkarssifi, Slefa Village, Lebanon, 1984, 2015]

Publications: An Excerpt From the Book "A Lebanese Archive"

By : Ania Dabrowska and Diab Alkarssifi

[The book A Lebanese Archive by Ania Dabrowska, from the collection of Diab Alkarssifi, was published by Book Works and Arab Image Foundation, 2015.]

Om Ashad, (Ashad’s Mother)

Slefa Village, Lebanon, 1984

DA

1984 was a bloody year in Lebanon, with heavy fighting in Beirut. Bekaa valley was under the control of the Syrian army, but despite this and despite the war it was not affected by the fighting. Life went on as normal. We were on a trip to the waterfalls in Yammouneh, near Baalbeck. The woman in the pictures, Om Ashad, was like a ‘mother of all the boys’. Her son Ashad is a doctor today. (…) Usually we would go to this area because it has a river and a waterfall. (…) I took most of the pictures spontaneously, without thinking, and then later, I see the beauty of the photograph. I don’t like to reminisce about these days because they were too beautiful.

AD

The story is shot in what appears to be Diab’s typical manner: a lot of frames are over or underexposed, carelessly framed, out of focus, but thenthere are two or three images that jump out and linger. The beautiful Om Ashad is one of my favourite women in the collection. In this case, everything leads to her dancing sequence, which would not be as perfect as it is without ‘the other frames’ around it. Those shots are like the archive’s subconscious, where the unspoken ideas, thoughts and feelings reside, whilst the perfect frames are like clear thoughts amidst confusion, a breath of air to a drowning man, the calm in the middle of a storm.


Text from Ania Dabrowska’s interview with Diab Alkarssifi, ‘Conversations About Archives’, The Creative SPACE Programme, from Artist’s SPACE / Arlington Residency Journal, 24 May 2011 and from a Kickstarter campaign film (Diab’s voice), 2014; photographs by Diab Alkarssifi
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May 30, 2014 Lebanon
Jonathan Rashad By :
Jonathan Rashad

Sisi Mania in Photos

Expressions of support for former army chief and the presumed presidential election winner Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have reached new heights during the lead-up to the 26-28 May 2014 vote. His name and image can be found on billboards all over the buildings, posters plastered on the walls coffee shops, and photos on display at street vendors’ stands.

As I covered the elections over the course of the past week in Cairo, I encountered pro-military songs everywhere—coffee shops, driving cars, public transportation, television, outside of polling stations, and even inside of them. Most notably, one could hear the loud tunes of "tislam al-ayyadi" (blessed be the hands), a song that glorifies Sisi`s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013.

Meanwhile, there were no signs of posters or billboards of Sisi’s challenger Hamdeen Sabahi. Official election results are due on 5 June 2014, but unofficial vote counts indicate that Sisi is the clear winner.