[This roundup is part of the new Photography and Audiovisual Narratives Page launch. All accompanying launch posts can be found here. This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on photography in and of the region and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Photography Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month’s roundup to photos@jadaliyya.com.]
In pictures: The hidden lives of the Amazigh people Middle East Eye (29 June 2020)
Algerian photographer Lazhar Mansouri left behind an archive of images documenting the lives of his Amazigh Chaoui tribe during a transformative period in Algeria's history.
The Shame of My Name AlJazeera (22 Jan 2020)
The Shame of my Name is the story of how some Algerians during the colonial period were forced to change their names by French colonial authorities at the time. Many of the names these Algerians were forced to carry hold demeaning and even vulgar meanings.
Modern Coloniality Modern Coloniality
A free online summer course on coloniality and decoloniality. This course will be run as a reading seminar and survey course looking into the constitution, scale, and many dimensions of the modern\colonial world-system.
Devoir de mémoire Africa in the Photobook
A biography of disappearance in Algeria photographed by Omar D and written by Lahouari Addi.
Raseef22 (28 June 2019) توسّع ميدان المُمكن
“استنّوا النّاس يخرجوا من صلاة الجمعة"، هكذا كتب الجميع بعدما اعتقلت الشرطة المتظاهرين القلائل الذين كسروا الصمت على الساعة التاسعة من يوم الجمعة 22 فيفري (شباط/فبراير).
Following Ottoman Photographs Ottoman History Podcast
Photography came to the Ottoman Empire almost immediately after its invention in 1839. Some of the major figures and studios involved in Ottoman photography have been identified, and certain stylistic aspects of images produced in and of the Ottoman Empire such as orientalism are well established.
Awal Center (28 December 2017) علي الديري يطرح سؤال بريطانيا الكبير العام 1923: من هو البحريني؟
رغم كون علي الديري أحد من نالهم انتقام إسقاط الجنسية من السلطات الحاكمة، فإنّه لم يدر فرضيّة كتابه الجديد «من هوالبحريني» حول الهويات والأصول، ولا السكّان الأصليين، رغم سهولة تقديم طرح كهذا، ورغم وجود بيئة خصبة لتلقيه وليثير فيها جدلاً لم يهدأ يوماً.
Awal Center (26 February 2016) التأريخ بالصّور: الشّوير وبيروت مثالً
لا شيء أصعب من التأريخ البصريّ على الورق، فالورق، حتى وإن كان “صورًا”، لا يستطيع أرشفة تاريخٍ بصري لجغرافيا كاملة. على الرغم من ذلك، يأتي جهد الباحث بدر الحاج كبيرًا في كتابيه "الشوير وتلالها: سجلٌ مصوّر" (287 صفحة) و”بيروت: ضوءٌ على ورق 1850-1915″ (170 صفحة من القطع الكبير)، الصادرين عن دار كتب، ويستحقّ المشاهدة والمتابعة.
Chicago’s Arab American store owners face reckoning in wake of George Floyd killing Chicago Tribune (15 June 2020)
At Exclusive, an electronics and clothing store in Auburn Gresham, the windows are boarded up. But the boards have art on them, five black faces peering out into this South Side neighborhood. Under the cardboard “Open” sign, there is a sixth face, black with an angel wing next to it. The faces are striking, but the boards are there to protect the store.
A Portrait of America That Still Haunts, Decades Later The New York Times (12 June 2020)
Robert Frank chose this image for the cover of his eye-opening book of 83 photographs, “The Americans,” published in 1959. He had crossed America by car, seeing it as an outsider, a Swiss who left Zurich in 1947 in search of broader horizons.
Facebook Recruits an Israeli Censorship Expert ORIENTXXI (9 June 2020)
Facebook’s new global Oversight Board, tasked with ruling on content ethics, has the former director-general of Israel’s Justice Ministry as one of its 20 members. Emi Palmor had set up a cyber unit in charge of monitoring and censoring Palestinian social media posts, on the orders of the extreme right-wing minister Ayelet Shaked.
As Black Photographers Document Protests, They Tell Their 'Own History In Real Time' NPR (13 June 2020)
Black photographers have been documenting the nationwide protests in a way that amounts to telling "our own history in real time," said Brooklyn, N.Y.-based commercial photographer Mark Clennon, "because our parents, and grandparents never really had a chance to have their voices heard."
Viral Video: Palestinian Actress Maryam Abu Khaled Speaks Out Against Racism In The Middle East Scoop Empire (7 June 2020)
Throughout the past couple of days the issue of racism against anyone who is different, especially those with different skin colors, has been raised all over the world in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time. The Black Lives Matter movement is now officially the largest civil rights movement in our collective history.
We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs Teen Vogue (2 August 2017)
Adore or despise them, GIFs are integral to the social experience of the Internet. Thanks to a range of buttons, apps, and keyboards, saying “it me” without words is easier than ever. But even a casual observer of GIFing would notice that, as with much of online culture, black people appear at the center of it all.
Why Photo Editors Need to Hire Black Photographers Every Day Aperture(11 June 2020)
When New York Magazine chose a white conflict photographer’s image for the cover of their June 8, 2020, issue, there was an uproar on Instagram. The magazine’s outspoken (white) art critic Jerry Saltz called the cover “tremendous.” But Lindsay Peoples Wagner, editor in chief at Teen Vogue, commented, “sad that you hardly ever hire black photographers to shoot covers and STILL didn’t this week of all weeks.”
Anti-Blackness in the Arab World and the Violence that Doesn't Get a Hashtag Scene Arabia (10 June 2020)
When black people are attacked in the Arab world and we refuse to see it, that is not fundamentally different to when a police officer kneels on the neck of a black man in the US.
What does the Photographer of the Future Need? Viewbook
A new culture of producing and consuming photographs is in place, challenging the profession of photographer as we once knew it. This is a confusing yet exciting moment, a time to re-think the need for and use of photography. How do current photographers adapt to these changes, and how do we teach photography to the next generation?