Shahd Alhamdan

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH - Athr Gallery has launched it’s latest exhibition, Memory for Forgetfulness, featuring four photographic artists from the Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP). Project coordinator for Athr Gallery, Afia Bin Taleb said the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) launched the initiative, in collaboration with the Prince Claus Fund (PCF) and photography agency Magnum Foundation, to encourage photographers to document the Arab world as many of the region’s events are poorly documented.



The ADPP initiative started in 2014 as an intensive three-year program to stimulate the production and distribution of compelling and unconventional documentary work. Nine photographers were selected; four of them are showcasing their work in Athr Gallary: Natalie Naccache from Lebanon, Omar Imam from Syria, Reem Falaknaz from United Arab Emirates and Samar Hazboun from Palestine. The other participants in the ADPP initiative are showcasing their work in other countries.



The exhibition includes 11 of Hazboun’s pieces, which focus on the West Bank, her home city before immigrating to London. Her work documents women’s rights and circumstances in the West Bank, in particular pregnant women from the West Bank and what happens to them when they are at a border crossing and need to go to hospital. In her work, she introduces a Palestinian woman who delivered her baby at a border crossing after she was refused permission to cross the border. Her son suffered brain damage and other disabilities because of a lack of oxygen during the birth.



Works by the other photographer’s in the exhibition document the displacement of Syrian refugees, violence against women, vanishing landscapes and invisible subcultures and offer an in-depth alternative to mainstream media coverage of the region.



The exhibition continues until the end of September, and is open to the public from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m.