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The Arab Image Foundation: Collecting, Studying and Preserving Photographs from the Middle East and North Africa

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The Arab Image Foundation: Collecting, Studying and Preserving Photographs from the Middle East and North Africa 95 THE ARAB IMAGE FOUNDATION: COLLECTING, STUDYING AND PRESERVING PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA Zeina Arida, Rima Mokaiesh Arab Image Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon [email protected], [email protected] KEYWORDS: Arab Image Foundation, Arab world, Chadirji, modern cultural heritage, Madani, Middle East, networks, photography, preservation, training, Zaatari ABSTRACT: The Arab Image Foundation (AIF) has been collecting, studying and preserving photographs from the Middle East and North Africa since 1997. It runs curatorial and research projects, and activities related to photograph preservation. Fifteen years after its creation, the AIF’s archive holds over 600,000 images, including complete collections entrusted by photographers such as Hashem el Madani (Lebanon) or Kamil and Rifaat Chadirji (Iraq). Such collections require sustained efforts in terms of archiving, documenting and digitizing. In addition to the care of its own collection, the AIF’s current preservation programs include the Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (MEPPI), which seeks to identify and offer training to significant photographic collections in a region where expertise in conservation and preservation is all too often absent. The AIF is also a member of the Modern Heritage Observatory, a coalition which campaigns for the preservation of modern cultural heritage through the creation of a regional network of individuals and institutions committed to its cause. 1. COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHS about how images are used, and their relationship to notions such as identity, history and memory. The AIF's approach to Established in Beirut in 1997 by a group of prominent Arab assembling a collection differs from that of more traditional photographers, video artists and curators, the Arab Image historians, conservators or curators in that the process is Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the primarily led by the critical and creative work of artists. collection, study and preservation of photography and other Through the efforts of the AIF, the photographic works of Van related visual material from the Middle East, North Africa, and Leo (Egypt), Latif el Ani (Iraq) and Hashem el Madani the Arab diaspora. (Lebanon) have been introduced to an international audience. Fifteen years after its creation, the Arab Image Foundation’s Prints and negatives from these and other collections selected archive today holds over 600,000 photographs. Over the years, for their artistic and historical value are scanned in high AIF members have gathered photographic material from a resolution and made accessible via the AIF’s internal database, diverse range of sources: from families to professional studios, with approximately 20,000 of these images also available online and photographers to collectors. on www.fai.org.lb. The standards used for the digitization and The Arab Image Foundation works to make its collection e-preservation of the AIF archive have been developed by the accessible to the public through a wide spectrum of activities, AIF in the course of the last 15 years. Several consultants including site-specific exhibitions, publications, videos and an helped develop the AIF’s digitization guidelines. In particular, online image database. It seeks to encourage critical approaches Franziska Frey, today Head of Preservation and Digital Imaging to the reading and interpretation of photographs. Services at the Harvard Library, reviewed and edited the The contents of the AIF collection represent both the guidelines in 2011. The photos are documented in the AIF foundation’s central preservation mandate and the specific database with extensive metadata available. research interests of its members. The artists, writers, filmmakers and historians affiliated with the AIF have, to date, Since its inception, the AIF has produced fifteen exhibitions and initiated research projects in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, seven publications in partnership with international museums, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Mexico, Argentina and Senegal. galleries and cultural institutions. The collection has also proved The result is a dynamic and at times idiosyncratic collection that an invaluable resource for artists' projects, curatorial initiatives not merely illustrates the history of photography in the region and academic research. Its premises are open to the public daily but rather situates a wealth of different photographic practices and include a unique library dedicated to photography and within a complex context of social, economic, political and extensive research facilities. cultural factors. Authored by professionals, amateurs and anonymous photographers alike, the collection’s images cover a wide 2. STUDYING PHOTOGRAPHS breadth of genres and styles – including documentary, historical, reportage, industrial and advertising photography. 2.1. The Madani collection The diverse range of subjects includes architecture, family and studio portraits, fine art, landscapes, still life and nudes. One of the AIF’s long-term areas of study is the Madani In addition to expanding the AIF's collection, the research Project, featuring the work of studio photographer Hashem el projects make valuable contributions to the study of Madani (1928-). The entire archive of Madani’s Studio photography in the region by collecting information on Shehrazade is taken as study material to understand the complex photographers: their biographies and the conditions informing relationship tying a studio photographer to his working space, their practice. Inevitably, the research projects raise questions 96 Progress in Cultural Heritage Preservation – EUROMED 2012 his equipment and tools, economy, and aesthetics, and further collection. A portion of the digitized images is available on the explores his ties to his clients, society, and the city in general. AIF website, at www.fai.org.lb. Hashem el Madani’s archive is the AIF’s longest running Initiated by artist Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image research project to date. So far, work on Madani’s archive has Foundation, the project reflects, on the one hand, Zaatari’s produced two books, three exhibitions and two videos. One interest in living situations and configurations as objects of exhibition in particular, titled “Itinerary”, is a permanent study that bear witness to modern traditions and complex social installation dating back to 2007, when the AIF installed 60 relationships, and, on the other, the AIF’s commitment to photographs in shops scattered throughout the old city of Saida. preserving, indexing and studying photographic collections These portraits by Madani of shop owners standing next to their from the Arab world. The Madani Project comprises a series of stores were each exhibited in the exact locations of the original thematic exhibitions, publications, and videos centered on the stores – of which some are still standing, and of which others photographer and his work. have taken on very different forms. This interactive installation Through this project, the Studio Shehrazade archive is gradually encourages the public to engage with the new shop owners and, being identified, detailed, and preserved by the AIF, and, with if curious, to discover Saida through its oral history. over 100,000 negatives, is one of the AIF’s largest collections. 2.2. The Chadirji collection Hashem el Madani was born in Saida, but of Saudi Arabian descent. In 1947, Madani travelled to Palestine seeking The Chadirji collection is one of the most recent additions to the employment, and began working in Haifa as an assistant to a AIF archive. It was entrusted to the AIF by Rifaat Chadirji, a Jewish immigrant photographer named Katz. He returned to renowned Iraqi architect and photographer and comprises his Saida a year later at the outbreak of the events of 1948. In own archive, as well as that of his father, Kamil Chadirji. The Saida, Madani bought his first 35mm camera for 200 Lira, and latter was a journalist, political activist, and an avid began to work as an itinerant photographer. He would walk in photographer who documented social change and injustices the city offering his services to shop owners and passers-by. At through his lens. He sought to record the disappearing the same time, he transformed a space in his parents' home into traditional Iraq and to document the poverty that existed therein. a studio. By 1952 Madani had raised enough money to buy new K. Chadirji’s collection of 1,200 images had already been equipment and rent a studio of his own in the same building as through a rigorous process of archiving before arriving at the Cinema Shehrazade in Riad El Solh street, thereby giving the Arab Image Foundation in the spring of 2012. The collection, studio its name. which spans his work in various countries including Iraq, Madani's archive sheds light on the life of a city during half a Lebanon, Syria and Iran, is dated chronologically and classified century of dramatic sociopolitical change. However, the studio according to subject matter. It features images of prominent was most active over the course of the 1950s, photographing personalities in Iraqi society, intellectual gatherings and social residents of Saida – families, individuals, shop owners and life in addition to self-portraits, from the early 1920s to the workers – and as such providing a portrait of the city from this 1960s. important historical period. Shoemaker Baghdad, Iraq, 1928 Kamil Chadirji Copyright © Arab Image Foundation Rifaat Chadirji,
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