ISSP 2019 Publication - Photography and the World

The Arab Image Foundation
is an independent association
and archive of photographic
objects based in Beirut. The
foundation's collection includes
over 500,000 objects from and
related to the Middle East, North
Africa and the Arab diaspora,
and has been gradually assembled
over the last 20 years
by artists and researchers and
through donations. Here, the
foundation's Managing Director
Marc Mouarkech expands on
the questions that arise when
dealing with archives.
For us—eight fairly young people—to
have a major archive in
the ways in which all these people
represented themselves. It’s also
about all the ways in which people
have dealt with their own archives,
about the ways they dealt with a
camera, how they’ve recorded their
environment, how they registered
their daily lives, even how professional
photographers took images
of the people who lived around
them. We want people to think
of these things when they look at
those images.
How can we think responsibly and
ethically about how we can use
this material? We know that at the
foundation we cannot study each
and every collection in our archive,
there is too much material, so the
our hands is a major responsibility.
How do we deal with it?
How do we think of an archive
linked to our region, taking into consideration
the context in which we
are based: we are in Beirut, and it's
an archive that represents different
communities and the diversity of
cultures of the region. How should
we actually take all of this and think
about it in a way that puts into the
spotlight that diversity?
How do we shift the perception
of the archive? The archive in our
case is a collection of the truths
of so many different persons. The
photographic objects contain their
histories, their memories, they are
idea is to create opportunities. We
give access and allow for people
to use those images. We consider
what the archive might instigate
and how it might plant seeds in
people's imagination and people's
way of thinking about history.
An archive of photographic objects
such as ours allows us to write many
different histories and see things in
so many different ways. Through
archives, we can promote diversity.
103 What do you do?
104
What is this worth?