working for several years when she suddenly came to international attention and acclaim with a series of photographs responding to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Since that moment, international public institutions have been eager to show her striking, multi-layered and beautifully rendered artworks, which always reveal a questioning and critical eye on events that unfold around her. Filled with illustrations and insightful essays, this publication shows why her images are such unique testaments to their time.
NERMINE HAMMAM
The photographer Nermine Hammam had been quietly
NERMINE HAMMAM CAIRO, TEXAS: A PHOTOGRAPHER’S DIARY Edited by Rose Issa
Cover image: Detail of The Great Beast from the Upekkha series (2011), digital photography printed on Epson ultrachrome K3 inks on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper
CONTENTS 4 IMAGES AND IMAGINATION FOREWORD BY MARTIN BARNES
8 APPROPRIATING TIMES AND GENRES BY ROSE ISSA
16 WÉTIKO BY NERMINE HAMMAM
36 UNFOLDING BY NERMINE HAMMAM
60 UPEKKHA BY NERMINE HAMMAM
84 BIOGRAPHY & BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Rose Issa Projects would like to thank our colleagues at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; the FotoMuseum Antwerp; and the Mosaic Rooms, London for all their support over the years. We are especially grateful to Miriam Shatanawi, Madeline Yale Preston, Omar Qattan, Martin Barnes, Michket Krifa and Iman Fares for their invaluable efforts on our behalf. We would also like to thank the National Gallery of Australia, the University of Chicago, and the V&A for their kind contribution to this project; our designers – Jonathan Wood and Petra Kottmair; and the London editorial and production team – Amalia Chappa, Francesca Ricci and Katia Hadidian.
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Cover image: Detail of The Great Beast from the Upekkha series (2011), digital photography printed on Epson ultrachrome K3 inks on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper
CONTENTS 4 IMAGES AND IMAGINATION FOREWORD BY MARTIN BARNES
8 APPROPRIATING TIMES AND GENRES BY ROSE ISSA
16 WÉTIKO BY NERMINE HAMMAM
36 UNFOLDING BY NERMINE HAMMAM
60 UPEKKHA BY NERMINE HAMMAM
84 BIOGRAPHY & BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Rose Issa Projects would like to thank our colleagues at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; the FotoMuseum Antwerp; and the Mosaic Rooms, London for all their support over the years. We are especially grateful to Miriam Shatanawi, Madeline Yale Preston, Omar Qattan, Martin Barnes, Michket Krifa and Iman Fares for their invaluable efforts on our behalf. We would also like to thank the National Gallery of Australia, the University of Chicago, and the V&A for their kind contribution to this project; our designers – Jonathan Wood and Petra Kottmair; and the London editorial and production team – Amalia Chappa, Francesca Ricci and Katia Hadidian.
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Untitled, from the Escaton series, printed on Hahnem端hle Fine Art Paper, 60 x 60 cm (2009-2013)
APPROPRIATING TIMES & GENRES BY ROSE ISSA, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF ROSE ISSA PROJECTS, LONDON
For the past 14 years, Nermine Hammam has worked as a photographer, using her own images as well as appropriating the photographs, paintings and artworks of other people from various eras to create her distinctive pieces. For the most part, her working method is to digitally manipulate the images, deconstructing, reconstructing and recolouring them in a painterly way to express her intellectual and aesthetic concerns and illustrate her perception of the world around her. I first met Hammam in 2009 while researching Arab Photography Now (Kehrer, 2011), one of the first books to showcase contemporary photography from the Middle East and North Africa. That year she came to London from Cairo with the first artist proofs of her Escaton series (2008-9) of Egyptian women, men or entire families relaxing at the beach. The women were mostly veiled or conservatively dressed, trying to swim or splash about in the water despite being covered up. Many of the men were bearded and looked a little menacing, while a few were clean-shaven, sun-tanning and relaxing. I thought she had accurately captured a growing tendency that was starting to make me feel quite uncomfortable and slightly irritated on the beaches of Sharm el Sheikh and Alexandria. But Hammam saw something else, from her perspective on the inside of her community: contradictions, awkwardness, incongruity, absurdity. Where I saw an annoying statement, she saw refuge and adaptation. She saw all this, but portrayed it with affection, something many Egyptians have for their country and fellow countrymen, no matter what. Hammam is attracted to portraiture, and as early as 2001 started to take pictures of the Egyptian public, from pilgrims (the El Mouled series, 2003)
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Untitled, from the Escaton series, printed on Hahnem端hle Fine Art Paper, 60 x 60 cm (2009-2013)
APPROPRIATING TIMES & GENRES BY ROSE ISSA, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF ROSE ISSA PROJECTS, LONDON
For the past 14 years, Nermine Hammam has worked as a photographer, using her own images as well as appropriating the photographs, paintings and artworks of other people from various eras to create her distinctive pieces. For the most part, her working method is to digitally manipulate the images, deconstructing, reconstructing and recolouring them in a painterly way to express her intellectual and aesthetic concerns and illustrate her perception of the world around her. I first met Hammam in 2009 while researching Arab Photography Now (Kehrer, 2011), one of the first books to showcase contemporary photography from the Middle East and North Africa. That year she came to London from Cairo with the first artist proofs of her Escaton series (2008-9) of Egyptian women, men or entire families relaxing at the beach. The women were mostly veiled or conservatively dressed, trying to swim or splash about in the water despite being covered up. Many of the men were bearded and looked a little menacing, while a few were clean-shaven, sun-tanning and relaxing. I thought she had accurately captured a growing tendency that was starting to make me feel quite uncomfortable and slightly irritated on the beaches of Sharm el Sheikh and Alexandria. But Hammam saw something else, from her perspective on the inside of her community: contradictions, awkwardness, incongruity, absurdity. Where I saw an annoying statement, she saw refuge and adaptation. She saw all this, but portrayed it with affection, something many Egyptians have for their country and fellow countrymen, no matter what. Hammam is attracted to portraiture, and as early as 2001 started to take pictures of the Egyptian public, from pilgrims (the El Mouled series, 2003)
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WÉTIKO
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat. Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West (1889) BY NERMINE HAMMAM
The idea for this project first surfaced in 2013, after two years of travelling between
for the purposes of imperial warfare. My constant interaction with such micro-
the streets of revolutionary Cairo and my desktop. The contrast between my daily
violations of truth and events for the sake of narrative led me to this reflection on
experiences and the news reports was hard to ignore. In a sense, the revolution
the fabrication, manipulation and implications of political myths.
started with a lie. On the 25th January, most state media channels still insisted on pretending everything was fine under the placid sun of Egypt – showing us flowers,
The Native American philosopher Jack D. Forbes wrote about how modern
birds and “natures mortes” along the Nile, instead of burning headquarters and
society has suffered through many decadent times, particularly in the 20th
dying protestors. Then, a little after the Rabaa massacres of August 2013, I witnessed
century and into the 21st. Our compulsion to consume the earth’s resources has
groups of men staging the events of the preceding days for visiting Western
combined with exploitation, war and terrorism, and the resulting increased
photojournalists – who eagerly posted such re-enactments as pictorial truth.
hardship is at the centre of contemporary life.
Such occurrences have punctuated the Arab Spring from its inception.
But why do we find this behaviour normal? According to Forbes, the crux of
Photos of dying masses in Iraq were used to picture the horrors of the Gaddafi
the problem is Wétiko – a psychosis at the heart of civilisation. The term
regime in Libya; an allegedly orphaned Syrian girl lying in a chalk drawing of her
Wétiko was used by the Native American Cree tribe to describe “a cannibal or,
mother’s womb turned out to be school kids posing for a professional art project;
more specifically, an evil person or spirit who terrorises other creatures by
a few thousand protestors in Tahrir Square could be easily cropped into 30 million
means of terrible evil acts”. Forbes appropriates that Wétikos are those who
protestors, and on it went. And beyond even the Arab Spring, these instances of
consume other people for private purpose or profit. They are in our governments,
“strategic editing” were as old as mass media itself. We all still remember the video
our corporations, and our places of worship, and they control public opinion.
where Iraqi dissidents, in a supposedly spontaneous outburst, pulled down a statue
They are also the powerful elites who have bestowed their versions of history
of Saddam Hussein to the ground, when in fact it had required an immense staging
upon us. Our history is selective, full of the propagandised polemics of those
operation – visible as soon as we zoomed out of the edited installation the media
who have control and power. The psychosis of Wétiko spreads like a disease.
had allowed us to see.
It corrupts actions, opinions and beliefs, and is ultimately the cause of humanity’s inhumanity to itself. Therefore, perhaps the more pressing issue is
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The interchangeability of victims in media portrayals, their second death, lay at the
not why Wétiko happens, but rather what we can do to dispel it. This is the
root of this project. Cropping, editing, and self-censoring were all acts of violence to
essential premise of Wétiko: Cowboys and Indigenes – how to propagate a new
these subjects of history – unethical according to journalistic practice but necessary
way of seeing.
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All images from the WĂŠtiko: Cowboys and Indigenes series (2013-2014); all hand-tinted digital collage on HahnemĂźhle Fine Art Paper Roping A Rustler by Charles Marion Russell (1903), 55 x 80 cm
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Horsemen In The Desert by Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz and Buffalo Bill by Adolf Spohr (1900/1958), 61.5 x 80 cm
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At Rest in the Syrian Desert by Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht (1883), 41 x 80 cm
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At Rest in the Syrian Desert by Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht (1883), 41 x 80 cm
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UNFOLDING
To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate... Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977) BY NERMINE HAMMAM
Unfolding is a series consisting of 20 images depicting stylised Japanese
01
beauty, to become voyeurs of boundless violence and sadism, the very act of
landscapes, intersected with explicit footage of police and army brutality in the
News image of Egyptian soldiers rounding up
viewing confirming our acquiescence and complicity. In this work I question our
year following Egypt’s 2011 revolution. Inspired by 17th- and 18th-century
an unarmed civilian street protestor during the
ability to blind ourselves to violence through distance and perspective. I try to probe
Japanese and Korean screens, the series is printed on rice paper. The
Cairo uprising (2011). This image is incorporated
the power of the mass media to entirely detach us from horror through the endless
photographic material incorporated in the work was not taken by me but
into Super Gardens of Tahrir (page 46) and
replication of imagery. The way it transposes us through infinitely layered images,
collated from public sources, from images captured by Egyptian citizens in the
Hibiscus (page 50)
away from the original act of crime, or sin, allowing us to live, comfortably removed,
months following the revolution and widely circulated through the media.
in a web of codes and signifiers – or simulacra – that pose as reality but are
Immediately recognisable to Egyptians, these images have acquired an iconic
questionably devoid of the real. The layers of the work signify the noise of life that
status in Egypt, becoming symbols of the waning revolutionary ideals that have
blinds us to the pain, suffering and murder that lurk behind the endless parade of
given way to armed battles in the streets surrounding Tahrir Square.
images we consume. In fact, it is the very act of creating iconic images that detaches and desensitises us from the original violence that it depicts.
The original concept evolved from my personal experience of a day in Cairo where I witnessed young Egyptian protestors losing their lives in Tahrir Square, while less
The sensation had a common tonality to it, a familiarity that recalled times and
than one kilometre away, city life progressed undisturbed. The experience affected
places far removed from Tahrir. Most of us have experienced this feeling
me in ways I couldn’t really pinpoint or find an appropriate name for. Many around
when, for instance, at dinner or in a cab on the way to some joyous occasion,
me referred to it as the “twilight zone”, a place where little sense can be found,
an impersonal TV or mobile phone screen hurls distant images of starving
where the expectations that structure everyday life oscillate between the absurd,
children, war, or petty criminality at us. Suddenly, all the absurdity of our daily
the nauseating and the necessary.
lives comes crashing against these images, into a pool of generalised anxiety. At other times, we just turn our gaze away, or the TV off, not ready to deal with the
Parodying the human urge “not to see”, I beatified these scenes of brutality,
thoughts that flow in the aftermath.
suspending images of unrestrained violence against unarmed civilians within
36
aesthetically pleasing and highly stylised landscapes. In the foreground we
In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag wrote, “The pain of others
see only the beauty of this utopian setting in all its blissful and ordered abundance.
can become the subject of crisis, avoidance or repression, but more often than not
But peering through the undergrowth, we are unexpectedly confronted by horror.
it simply ends up generating an alarming form of fatigue.” How many times can we
As though in a nightmare, we are diverted from the comfortable admiration of
relive the death of a cancer patient, or cry for a soldier left behind enemy lines?
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UNFOLDING
To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate... Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977) BY NERMINE HAMMAM
Unfolding is a series consisting of 20 images depicting stylised Japanese
01
beauty, to become voyeurs of boundless violence and sadism, the very act of
landscapes, intersected with explicit footage of police and army brutality in the
News image of Egyptian soldiers rounding up
viewing confirming our acquiescence and complicity. In this work I question our
year following Egypt’s 2011 revolution. Inspired by 17th- and 18th-century
an unarmed civilian street protestor during the
ability to blind ourselves to violence through distance and perspective. I try to probe
Japanese and Korean screens, the series is printed on rice paper. The
Cairo uprising (2011). This image is incorporated
the power of the mass media to entirely detach us from horror through the endless
photographic material incorporated in the work was not taken by me but
into Super Gardens of Tahrir (page 46) and
replication of imagery. The way it transposes us through infinitely layered images,
collated from public sources, from images captured by Egyptian citizens in the
Hibiscus (page 50)
away from the original act of crime, or sin, allowing us to live, comfortably removed,
months following the revolution and widely circulated through the media.
in a web of codes and signifiers – or simulacra – that pose as reality but are
Immediately recognisable to Egyptians, these images have acquired an iconic
questionably devoid of the real. The layers of the work signify the noise of life that
status in Egypt, becoming symbols of the waning revolutionary ideals that have
blinds us to the pain, suffering and murder that lurk behind the endless parade of
given way to armed battles in the streets surrounding Tahrir Square.
images we consume. In fact, it is the very act of creating iconic images that detaches and desensitises us from the original violence that it depicts.
The original concept evolved from my personal experience of a day in Cairo where I witnessed young Egyptian protestors losing their lives in Tahrir Square, while less
The sensation had a common tonality to it, a familiarity that recalled times and
than one kilometre away, city life progressed undisturbed. The experience affected
places far removed from Tahrir. Most of us have experienced this feeling
me in ways I couldn’t really pinpoint or find an appropriate name for. Many around
when, for instance, at dinner or in a cab on the way to some joyous occasion,
me referred to it as the “twilight zone”, a place where little sense can be found,
an impersonal TV or mobile phone screen hurls distant images of starving
where the expectations that structure everyday life oscillate between the absurd,
children, war, or petty criminality at us. Suddenly, all the absurdity of our daily
the nauseating and the necessary.
lives comes crashing against these images, into a pool of generalised anxiety. At other times, we just turn our gaze away, or the TV off, not ready to deal with the
Parodying the human urge “not to see”, I beatified these scenes of brutality,
thoughts that flow in the aftermath.
suspending images of unrestrained violence against unarmed civilians within
36
aesthetically pleasing and highly stylised landscapes. In the foreground we
In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag wrote, “The pain of others
see only the beauty of this utopian setting in all its blissful and ordered abundance.
can become the subject of crisis, avoidance or repression, but more often than not
But peering through the undergrowth, we are unexpectedly confronted by horror.
it simply ends up generating an alarming form of fatigue.” How many times can we
As though in a nightmare, we are diverted from the comfortable admiration of
relive the death of a cancer patient, or cry for a soldier left behind enemy lines?
37
Super Gardens of Tahrir, 17 x 53 cm Image source: Reuters/Stringer (16 December, 2011). Egyptian soldiers arrest a male protestor near Tahrir Square. At least two people were killed and 100 wounded on this day. Photo superimposed on 18th to 19th-century Japanese Edo period six-fold painted paper screen
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Super Gardens of Tahrir, 17 x 53 cm Image source: Reuters/Stringer (16 December, 2011). Egyptian soldiers arrest a male protestor near Tahrir Square. At least two people were killed and 100 wounded on this day. Photo superimposed on 18th to 19th-century Japanese Edo period six-fold painted paper screen
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Top: The Hunt I, 23 x 53 cm. Photo superimposed on 19th-century Japanese Meiji-period eight-fold paper screen, signed: “painted on commission with pleasure by Master Kokakan� Above: The Hunt II, 20 x 53 cm. Photo superimposed on 19th-century Japanese Edo period six-fold paper screen
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Fauna, 26 x 20 cm
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Top: The Hunt I, 23 x 53 cm. Photo superimposed on 19th-century Japanese Meiji-period eight-fold paper screen, signed: “painted on commission with pleasure by Master Kokakan� Above: The Hunt II, 20 x 53 cm. Photo superimposed on 19th-century Japanese Edo period six-fold paper screen
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Fauna, 26 x 20 cm
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UPEKKHA
The real meaning of upekkha is equanimity, not indifference in the sense of unconcern for others. As a spiritual virtue, upekkha means stability in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. Bhikkhu Bodhi (1998) BY NERMINE HAMMAM
During Egypt’s January 25th Revolution of 2011 we heard with apprehension that
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into the loaded symbol of the army is a carefully choreographed performance
the army was on its way. This mythical force was leaving its barracks in the desert
Hammam’s snapshots of soldiers on duty in Tahrir
of uniforms and equipment, a strength in numbers, a united display of force. In
and joining citizens in Tahrir Square. And then they came, descending upon us
Square during the Egyptian uprising. These were
the act of photographing the soldiers, unwittingly the individual was reclaimed
in the square, cumbersome tanks screeching through Cairo’s desolate streets
later incorporated into Digital Dementia (page 69)
from the group, “repersonalising” the “de-personalised” and unmasking the
where, only days before, there had been bustle and congestion.
and Burkan (page 78)
spectacle. Individual soldiers were caught in unguarded moments, laying down their display of power, young and vulnerable amidst their gadgetry. In this process,
But as the hatches opened and the doors of military vehicles were thrown wide,
I found myself approaching power from an unexpected vantage point; allowing
what emerged was not the angry stereotypes of power and masculinity we
me to see its other side: the frailty that crouches behind stereotypes of force
expected, but wide-eyed youths with tiny frames, squinting at the cacophony of
masquerading in a regalia of military hardware.
Cairo. The soldiers’ vulnerability and sheer youth baffled me. I had come to Tahrir to photograph images of military might. Instead, what emerged was its opposite:
After seeing these protagonists, so young, innocent and de-masculinised, I felt
military tenderness, virile coquetry and masculine frailty.
an urge to parody propaganda posters from the 1940s and 1950s that feature strong nubile men and women in idealised settings; posters parading
Watching these young soldiers in ill-fitting army fatigues, astride incongruous
power to the masses. During the 18 days of revolution, in the face of thousands
military hardware, I wondered, what is power and who, ultimately, wields it? Then
of peaceful protestors, the army seemed inactive, observers of the scene before
it dawned on me: power is a myth, a construct. It resides only in the images that
them. Military might appeared to me deflected and disarmed, turned in on itself,
we hold of it, rather than in its inherent reality.
by the indomitable power of peaceful confrontation. Perhaps power cannot survive without powerlessness: it is robbed of its hegemony. The backgrounds
During that time, the power of the military was symbiotic: a frantic to and fro
emphasise the discordant presence of armed men among civilians in Tahrir:
between army and civilians. Power conferred by onlookers, endorsed by long-held
men of war in Paradise.
beliefs and projected back on those who looked on it as fact. Soldiers and citizens alike, engaged in that transference of power: from us to them and back.
I have often wondered if photography offers the power to see behind the mask. Does it seek to destabilise, picking up that which should be seen and
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Growing up, we learned that power has a certain “look”. Now, I see that it is an
that which must remain hidden? Was the very act of photographing soldiers a
elaborate performance complete with props. What transforms wide-eyed youths
personal gesture of subversion– an inversion of traditional hierarchies of
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power? As a woman, I zoomed into this masculine sphere from which I am
Hammam’s snapshot of soldiers on duty by
traditionally excluded. To photograph the soldiers was to present the possibility
a makeshift camp in Tahrir Square during the
of them as young and vulnerable, desiring and desired.
Egyptian uprising
Our collective subconscious favours large, overarching symbols of power to the smaller, real-life narratives that make up human experience. We prefer the twodimensional, mass-produced images of Stalin and Mao, or the faceless facade of military might, to life’s myriad microcosms of power. The postcards act as a balance to this. Unlike the staged invincibility of the military machine, postcards admit to the delicacy of memory. Peace and tranquillity can only ever be experienced as transient and fleeting. Postcards are an attempt to send these specific emotions into the future. All that is left of power is the image of it; it stays in our psyche as a picture. The Utopian form of the postcards also betrays a peculiar nostalgia. The work anticipates its own fading, the reframing of revolutionary dreams as mundane political history. After all, Upekkha captures a particular moment in time that can never be relived. The nostalgic memory of an organisation, so sparing in its appearances and generous in its dealings with the people, is now hard to recall.
THE SOLDIERS’ VULNERABILITY AND SHEER YOUTH BAFFLED ME. I HAD COME TO TAHRIR TO PHOTOGRAPH IMAGES OF MILITARY MIGHT. INSTEAD, WHAT EMERGED WAS ITS OPPOSITE... Upekkha refers to the Buddhist aspiration of experiencing the world through a lens of equanimity. Perfecting detachment offers the opportunity to reorganise society differently, to notice the contradictions within the images. Social upheaval requires us to consider the coquettish smile of a soldier in khaki, the precariousness of a paradisical landscape. We must work out how to fear and admire, fight off and channel, mock and respect the terrible frailty of power.
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All images from the Upekkha series (2011); all digital photography printed with Epson ultrachrome K3 inks on Hahnem端hle Fine Art Paper Untitled, 60 x 60 cm
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The Break, 60 x 60 cm, collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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All images from the Upekkha series (2011); all digital photography printed with Epson ultrachrome K3 inks on Hahnem端hle Fine Art Paper Untitled, 60 x 60 cm
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The Break, 60 x 60 cm, collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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Stop, Come, Go, Continue, 50 x 90 cm
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Stop, Come, Go, Continue, 50 x 90 cm
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Self-portrait from the Ma’at series, printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper, 100 x 70 cm (2011)
BIOGRAPHY Nermine Hammam was born in 1967 in Cairo, Egypt, and lives between London and Cairo. She obtained her BFA in film-making from New York University’s Tisch School of Arts and worked with film production company Simon & Goodman and renowned film director Youssef Chahine before devoting herself to photography. SELECTED SOLO SHOWS
Paradox-on, House of the Delegation of the European Union
to Egypt, Cairo
Dress Code, CAP (Contemporary Art Platform), Kuwait
2011
Uncanny: Surreal Photography, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury,
Vermont
Images from the Egyptian Revolution, The French Institute, Cairo
Metanoia: Freedom To Create, Cape Town
Escaton, Mois de L’image, Dieppe, France
The Changing Room, Turin, Italy
Rencontres de Bamako Biennale, Mali and Traits d’Union, Paris
L’Art Contemporain Arabe, Villa Emerie, Paris
Dress Code, Art Sawa Gallery, Dubai
Renditions, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE
2010
Metamorphosis, Land of the Hyperreal, Havana, Cuba
Photo Biennale, Thessaloniki, Greece
Ashoura: Act of Faith, Abdijdmuseum Ten Duinen,
Koksijde, Belgium
Kallehauge and Michael Holm (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014)
2009
Il Corpus Homanus, Al Masar Gallery, Cairo
View From the Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography, Video and Mixed
Arab Contemporary, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
Metamorphosis X Biennial, Cuenca, Ecuador
Media Art, by Karin Adrian von Roques, Samer Mohdad and Claude W. Sui,
Open Your Eyes, Rose Issa Projects, London
Photoquai, Museum de Quai Branly, Paris
introduction by Wendy Watriss (Schilt Publishing, 2014)
2014
Wétiko, Rose Issa Projects, London
2013-14 She Who Tells a Story, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Arab World Views, Casa Arabe, Madrid
Cairo – Open City: New Testimonies from an Ongoing Revolution, by Florian
2012
Cairo Year One , Mosaic Rooms in association
Power! Photos! Freedom!, FotoMuseum, Antwerp and CAN
The Blow Out, The Empty Quarter Gallery, Dubai
Ebner and Constanze Wicke (Spector Books, 2013)
with Rose Issa Projects, London
(Centre national de l’audiovisuel), Luxembourg
2008
Athens Photo Festival, Greece
She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World,
Anachrony, Safarkhan Gallery, Cairo
2012-13 Light From the Middle East, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Places and Manners of Worship, Museum of Byzantine
by Kristen Gresh, foreword by Michket Krifa (MFA Publications, 2013)
2010
Metanoia, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
2012
Suwar: Pictorial Representations from the Arab World,
Culture, Thessaloniki
Eyemazing: The New Collectible Art Photography, edited by Eyemazing
2009
Metanoia, Parco Horcynus Orca, Messina, Italy
Rose Issa Projects, London
2007
Act of Faith, Der aa-kerk, Groningen, The Netherlands
Susan (Thames and Hudson, 2013)
Escaton, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
Re-Orientations II, Rose Issa Projects, London
2003
Cairo Modern Art, Fortis Circus Theatre, Netherlands
Light From the Middle East: New Photography, edited by Marta Weiss
2007
Palimpsest, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
Le Printemps de Septembre: History is Mine, Toulouse, France
2002
Photo Cairo, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
(Steidl, 2012)
Retrospective, The Sultan Gallery, Kuwait
PhotoMed 2012, Sanary sur Mer, France
2006
Ashoura, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo and Artmenparis, Paris
Anachrony, Syra Arts at the Washington Design Centre,
2005
Apotheosis, Karim Francis Gallery, Cairo
Washington DC
2004
Metamorphosis, Espace SD, Beirut
The Changing Room: Arab Reflections of Praxis and Times,
Julia Margaret Cameron Award 2012: Honourable Mention
(Kehrer, 2011)
2001
Portraits, Hanager Art Center, Cairo
The Underground Gallery, London and Turin, Italy
Freedom to Create 2011: First Prize – Commended
For a Sustainable World: Rencontres de Bamako, African Photography
Mitigation, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
Egyptian Art Today, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards 2011: First Prize
Biennial, 9th Edition, by Michket Krifa and Laura Serani (Actes Sud, 2011)
Traits d’Union The Venue, Lebanon (touring exhibition:
Jacob Riis Award 2010: Runner-up
Exposures, Photography and Egypt, by Maria Golia (Reaktion Books, 2010)
France, Jordan and Yemen)
The Invisible World Portfolio Selection 2010: Finalist, Honourable Mention
Egitto, by Martina Corgnati (Mesogea, 2009)
Metanoia Video, Oddo Bank, Paris and Nahatat
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Arab Photography Now, edited by Rose Issa and Michket Krifa
Act of Faith: On Faith and Conflict, Ecstasy and Excess (Noorderlicht, 2007) Modern Egyptian Art, by Lilian Karnouk (AUC, 2005)
Proche, Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris
Haute Africa: People, Photography, Fashion by Christophe De Jaeger,
SELECTED PRINT JOURNALS & NEWSPAPERS
She Sees Her Self, Galerie Satore, Paris
Ch. Didier Gondola, Karen Tranberg Hansen and Helen Jennings
The Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition,
(Lannoo Publishers, 2014)
The Times, London (5 April 2014): “From Bosnia to Tahrir Square, how
Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires
Arab Contemporary: Architecture and Identity, edited by Mette Marie
artists depict the world’s conflicts”
View from Inside, FotoFest 2014 Biennial at the Houston
Contemporary Art, Cairo
Center for Photography, Texas (touring show in USA)
Shots, Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris
The King’s Peace: Realism and War, Stills: Scotland’s
Centre for Photography, Edinburgh
Confluence: Contemporary Photography and Video
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Projects, 2012)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2014
Installation from the Arab World, VCU Qatar, Doha
Cairo Year One, edited by Rose Issa (Al Qattan Foundation & Rose Issa AWARDS
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Self-portrait from the Ma’at series, printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper, 100 x 70 cm (2011)
The Architectural Review, London (28 March 2014): “Contemporary Arab
Slate.com (12 September 2013): “A New Angle on the Soldiers of Tahrir
Design: Dynamism, Cynicism and Neon Calligraphy” by Stephen Kite
Square” by David Rosenberg
GUP Magazine (Guide to Unique Photography, Amsterdam), Issue 36,
The Daily Mail, UK (28 August 2013): “Life behind the veil: Stunning
March 2013: Photo essay by Erik Vroons
photographs seek to challenge Western misconceptions of what life is like
The Week, London (27 August 2013): “Arab Culture Amid Conflict” by
for Middle Eastern women” by Steve Nolan
Lauren Hansen
Gulf News, Dubai (27 June 2013): “You See What You Want to See”
The New Statesman, London (7 March 2013): “Light From the Middle
by Richard Holledge
East at the V&A: Middle Eastern photographic practice in focus” by
The Financial Times, London (17 August, 2012): “Snapshot: ‘The Break’”
Surabhi Khanna
by Nermine Hammam
The New York Times, USA (2 January 2013): “The Familiar Transformed
CNN.com (10 August 2012): “Images of Tahrir: Egypt’s Revolutionary Art”
With the Unexpected” by Susanne Fowler
by Tim Hume
The Evening Standard, London (16 November 2012): “Light from the
The Economist, London (14 December 2012): “Camera tricks”
Middle East: New Photography” by Sue Steward
The Arab Review.org (19 July 2012): “Nermine Hammam: A whisper in
The Observer, London (9 December 2012): “Light from the Middle East:
a war” by Emanuelle Degli Esposti
New Photography – review”
Libération, Paris (30 May 2012): “Nermine Hammam dans le grand bain”,
The Times, London (13 November 2012): “Light from the Middle East” by
by Gilles Renault
Nancy Durrant
BBC.co.uk (13 November 2012): “In Pictures: Light from the Middle East”
Newsweek (12 October 2012): “Images of the Middle East at the Victoria
CondéNastTraveler.com, New York (7 November 2011): “Egypt’s Revolution,
and Albert” by Jason Goodwin
by Egypt’s Artists” by Susan Hacks
Design Week, London (28 September 2012): “Light from the Middle East”
TV5 MONDE: L’Invité (2 February 2011): Nermine Hammam interviewed
by Emily Gosling
by Patrick Simonin
The National, Abu Dhabi (23 August 2012): “Can artistic merit be found in swiftly produced Arab Spring works?” by Ben East
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Monocle, London (July/August 2012): “A Different View” by Alex de Cramer Rolling Stone Magazine, New York (3 May 2012): “Nermine Hammam’s Life
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Through a Lens” by Adam Grundey
Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam
Daily News Egypt, Cairo (11 April 2012): “Nermine Hammam’s Voluble Cry
Parco Horcynus Orca, Messina, Italy
of Freedom” by Mariam Hamdy
Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
Contemporary Practices, Volume 5 (2010): Martina Corgnati in conversation with Nermine Hammam SELECTED ONLINE MEDIA Al Jazeera America.com, New York (2 April 2014): “In Houston, FotoFest offers a lens on the Arab World” by Ann Binlot Huffington Post, USA (17 December 2013): “Arab and Iranian Female Photographers Collide For ‘She Who Tells a Story’ at MFA Boston” by Priscilla Frank Huffington Post, USA (11 December 2013): “She Who Tells a Story” by Lori Zimmer Huffington Post, Maghreb (18 October 2013): “Des photomontages pour démonter le mythe de l’armée en Egypte” by Rebecca Chaouch
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working for several years when she suddenly came to international attention and acclaim with a series of photographs responding to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Since that moment, international public institutions have been eager to show her striking, multi-layered and beautifully rendered artworks, which always reveal a questioning and critical eye on events that unfold around her. Filled with illustrations and insightful essays, this publication shows why her images are such unique testaments to their time.
NERMINE HAMMAM
The photographer Nermine Hammam had been quietly
NERMINE HAMMAM CAIRO, TEXAS: A PHOTOGRAPHER’S DIARY Edited by Rose Issa