Light from the Middle East: New Photography

Image above. Hassan Hajjaj / Saida in Green, 2000, Digital c-print and tyre frame, Detail, 65 x 55 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

In development since 2009, the Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the British Museum and the V&A, is being built in response to a surge of interest in the visual arts in the region, beginning to remedy the under-representation of Middle Eastern photography in UK collections. The photographs respond to the social challenges and political upheavals of the Middle East over the last 30 years, including recent photographs created in reaction to the Arab Spring in 2011.

The exhibition 'Light from the Middle East: New Photography' will feature major works of contemporary photography focusing on the Middle East. The photographs on display will show the creative responses to the social challenges and political upheavals that have shaped the Middle East over the past 20 years and include up‐to‐date work Made following the recent revolution in Egypt. The photographs will present multiple viewpoints of a region where collisions between personal, social, religious and political life can be emotive and complex.

Shadi Ghadirian / From the series Qajar, 1998, Gelatin silver bromide print, 30 x 24 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Youssef Nabil / Detail from the series The Yemeni Sailors of South Shields, 2006 / Hand-coloured gelatin silver print, 39 x 27 cm / British Museum / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

The exhibition will showcase the work of 30 artists from 13 different countries including internationally established practitioners such as Abbas (Iran), Youssef Nabil (Egypt) and Walid Raad (Lebanon) and emerging talents including Taysir Batniji (Palestine), Shadi Ghadirian (Iran) and Abdulnasser Gharem (Saudi Arabia). The work covers a wide range of techniques and subject matter, from photojournalism to staged and digitally manipulated imagery.

Marta Weiss, curator of the exhibition said: “In the past few years contemporary photographic practice from and about the Middle East has been some of the most exciting, innovative and varied art anywhere in the world. The exhibition will celebrate the creative and sophisticated ways that contemporary artists use Photography to respond to the complexities of the Middle East.”

Nermine Hammam / From the series Upekkha, 2011, Archival inkjet print, 60 x 90 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Hassan Hajjaj / Saida in Green, 2000, Digital c-print and tyre frame, 65 x 55 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Stephen Deuchar, Art Fund Director said: “This new collection of photography created by the V&A and the British Museum with Art Fund support is being formed at a time of profound change in the Middle East. Artists and photographers, as cultural commentators, are themselves amongst the agents of change. We much look forward to the exhibition in the autumn which will showcase highlights from this important new collecting initiative.”

Newsha Tavakolian / From the series Mothers of Martyrs, 2006, Digital c-print, 50 x 76 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

The exhibition will be structured around three key themes; Recording, Reframing and Resisting. Each will explore a range of strategies Middle Eastern artists have used to engage with the medium of photography. The opening section will show how photography can be used as a powerful tool for recording people, places and events. From Newsha Tavakolian’s series Mothers of Martyrs (2006) featuring elderly mothers holding framed pictures of their sons who were killed in the Iran‐Iraq war during the 1980s, to Jananne Al-Ani’s disorienting aerial views of the desert in her video Shadow Sites II (2011), this section will demonstrate various ways in which the camera has been used to document and record.

Jowhara AlSaud / Airmail, from the series Out of Line, 2008, C-type print, 50.8 x 61 cm / V&A / Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum