photo beirut

Images close to home

A few new photos from the house and garden. Close-up details, using a shallow depth of field. A bug's eye view perhaps.

 

60 years of the Universal Human Rights Declaration - photo slide show

Oeil Public, a French photo agency that I like to use for excellent photos of the Middle East, has a poignant and compelling slide show commemorating 60 years of the UN's Universal Human Rights Declaration. As you might imagine, from a photojournalistic/documentary agency, the photos almost all show violations of (not respect for) human rights. It's powerfully done. I rarely sit through online slide shows, but this one was riveting (the music adds a sense of urgency). Just click on the link above and it will start up.

One of the photographers whose work appears in the slide show is Karim Ben Khelifa, whose photos I use occasionally for Middle East Report, and who focuses on Islam and the Arab world.

Cool Middle East design and visual culture

I stumbled upon the website for the Khatt Network for Arabic Typography again today and it is even more interesting than I remember (with a lovely new interface).

"The Khatt Foundation is a non-profit cultural foundation dedicated to design research and cultural exchange between Europe and the Arab World/Middle East."

You can join and become a member of the community, post announcements, notices, thoughts, designs. Check out the news section for events, conferences, calls for submission, exhibitions. Learn about such things as Samandal Comics, a quarterly tri-lingual comics magazine, or "Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a heartfelt tribute by some traditional letterpress printers in America to the literary and bibliographical heritage of Iraq, and its partial destruction."


The calendar section is especially worth visiting for detailed listings of events, including many photo, video/film and art exhibits. For example, here's an exhibit by Egyptian painter Huda Lutfi (a former professor of mine at AUC).

[Democracy is coming! 2008, Mixed Media, 45 x 35]

Also check out PhotoCairo04 put on by the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo:

An international multi-disciplinary visual arts project in Downtown Cairo featuring a series of exhibitions, screenings, presentations, residencies, a workshop and a temporary publishing house.

Opening reception on Wednesday 17 December 2008
Symposia: 19-21 December 2008 | 9-11 January 2009

And here's a curious call for posters by Iranian artists for a roaming display in Berlin, after one in Istanbul, about "Urban Jealousy":

Return to blogging

After a long absence here I've decided to try blogging again. It will be different from my earlier blogging, which was done from Beirut during the year we lived there, 2007. Since January 2008 we've been back home in Baltimore, MD and I've felt less inspired to use this platform for expression. However, I'm not ready to give it up just yet. Posts will still revolve around photography and the Middle East, but fairly broadly. I hope you'll check in once in a while and see how it goes.

Michelle