São Paulo – Pictures of Arab people in the Middle East and North Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Senegal and other parts of the world. Among them, photographs of families, friends, landscapes, parties, construction sites and several other subjects are in the collection of 600,000-plus photographs of the Arab Image Foundation (AIF), a Lebanon-based non-profit organization dedicated to collecting Arab images from all times and sources.
The institution was established in 1997 by the photographers Fouad el Khoury and Samer Mohdadand by the artist Akram Zaatari. “The goals of the foundation were to preserve the cultural heritage of the Middle East and North Africa, to study the local photographic practices, and to disseminate the work of Arab photographers around the world,” says the AIF director Zeina Arida.
To kick start the AIF collection, Khoury and Zaatari travelled Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon over the course of a year, collecting 15,000 to 20,000 images, says Arida. Other collaborators went to countries such as Palestine, Morocco, Senegal and Iran, looking for pictures of Arab people and members of the Diaspora in non-Arab countries.
“In addition to these research projects, collectors would also approach us and offer to place their collections in our care. Whilst our members are no longer travelling and working actively to expand the collection, we continue to regularly receive donations or offers of images, now that we are established in the field as an important reference point for others in and outside the region,” Arida explains.
The oldest pictures come from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, and date back to the 1860s. at present, the AIF collection includes photos from countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the Lebanese Diaspora in Senegal, Mexico and Argentina. The countries of which there are the most pictures, according to the AIF director, are from Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq.
“We have 9 images from Brazil dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. Most are of individuals and families either from Brazil or who arrived there from the Middle East. There are images from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo,” says Arida.
The director explains that upon gathering the image collection, the foundation did not seek specific subjects; the goal was to have a diverse pool. “When collecting images there was never a singular vision at the Foundation. Each member understood very differently the practice of collecting, and this was encouraged,” she says.
“This helped us to build an atypical and quite idiosyncratic collection.
Images are typically chosen based on both artistic value and cultural significance. Our collection features documentary, historical, social, industrial, experimental and advertising photography,” she explains.
The Arab Image Foundation pictures have travelled the world in 15 shows, in and out of the Arab world. They have “travelled to more than 60 venues in Lebanon, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. ‘Mapping Sitting,’ a project by artists Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari, toured 16 cities over the course of five years,” says the director.
In addition to collecting images, the AIF also has books, monographs, catalogues and videos about photography, according to Zeina Arida. “Normally resulting from research projects carried out by artists associated with the AIF, these publications increase public access to the Foundation’s collection and simultaneously reflect on the practice of photography in its diverse forms, studying the practice itself as much as the subjects of the photographs,” she says.
The Arab Image Foundation’s work can be seen by audiences both in person and online. Of the 600,000 images in the collection, including prints, negatives and glass plates, 70,000 have been digitized, and the organization intends to have the entire collection digitized in coming years.
The www.fai.org.lb site receives 200 visits a day. At the foundation headquarters, most visitors are art, history and anthropology students and researchers. The AIF also receives photographers and people from other local institutions looking to exchange experiences.
“Our research space at our offices in central Beirut offer a comprehensive reference library of books and other publications related to photography, art, theory, regional history and more. We also have a growing video library of artistic productions from the region. We also display a selection of reproduction prints of image from our archive,” says Arida. The space is open tio the public five days a week.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
