Arab Image Foundation - Impressions from an Archive

Schedule

Thu Jul 07 2022 at 10:00 am to Sun Jul 17 2022 at 05:00 pm

Location

Exhibition Research Lab (LJMU) | Liverpool, EN

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Impressions from an Archive brings together Arab Image Foundation and Beirut Printmaking Studio to re-imagine images of Arab culture
About this Event

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival presents this collaborative exhibition by the Arab Image Foundation (AIF) and the Beirut Printmaking Studio.


Impressions from an Archive brings printmakers from the recently-created analogue printmaking studio into dialogue with the photographic collection of the 25-year-old Arab Image Foundation. How might each printmaker “translate” their chosen photograph through their individual printmaking practice?


The Arab Image Foundation’s work is an ever-evolving research process into ways of looking at, interpreting, and interacting with the photographic objects in its custody.  A photographic negative or print, once created, remains in constant physical mutation. Likewise, its historical, cultural, and affective lives will depend on the viewer and will continue to shift. Through its work, the AIF studies the material and immaterial layers of photographs and seeks to further enrich this layering.


For this exhibition, printmakers from the Beirut Printmaking Studio chose images from diverse AIF collections, spanning from the 1870s to the 1970s, and from different parts of the Arab region and its diaspora, from which to produce their own intaglio prints. Positive prints of the original      photographic negatives have been produced, each of which is displayed alongside  the corresponding intaglio print as a diptych.


This exhibition reminds us how archives can support the objects they contain in their continuous      evolutions, across social, artistic, cultural, and geopolitical currents. In this way, archiving becomes an act of collective and plural translation, in which different realities and perspectives can co-exist, breathing new life into photographic objects.


Beirut Printmaking Studio is an inclusive and open space for people from all walks of life interested in discovering, learning and practicing art.  It is the only open printmaking studio in Lebanon that covers all forms of analogue printmaking, including intaglio, lithography, relief, alternative processes and darkroom photography. The studio aims at promoting and establishing analogue techniques in Lebanon, especially printmaking techniques.


The Arab Image Foundation is an independent association forging new pathways for photography and image practices. Its collection of over 500,000 photographic objects and documents from and related to the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab diaspora has been gradually assembled over the last 25 years by artists and researchers and through donations. With a critical and innovative approach, it collects, rethinks, preserves, activates and understands these photographs through their multiple strata, and enriches the collection in the process.


Image credit: Development of one of the Arab Image Foundation negatives in the dark room of the Beirut Printmaking Studio. Photo: Blanche Eid / AIF.


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Where is it happening?

Exhibition Research Lab (LJMU), John Lennon Art and Design Building, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

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Liverpool Arab Arts Festival

Host or Publisher Liverpool Arab Arts Festival

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