Tribe 09

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PROFILE Images - Courtesy of the artist. Writer - Emma Warburton, arts writer and researcher.

Myriam Boulos: Sunday Companionship, celebration and sisterhood Based in Beirut, Lebanese photographer Myriam

Under the Kafala system, a domestic worker cannot

Boulos uses her camera to understand her city,

leave their job, resign or leave the country without

its people and her place among them. Her work

their sponsor’s permission. Questioning the terms

in photography typically engages with recurrent

of their contract means risking deportation. As a

themes and subject matter. Through her images,

result, the Kafala system perpetuates situations

Boulos reveals her continuous interest in the

of abuse and exploitation. Boulos’s series Sunday

representation of women and minorities, and the

seeks to liberate these women from the labeling and

experience of subcultures existing on the social

oppression imposed on them by the Kafala system,

fringes of Beirut. The artist also tends to work in

by capturing them in the few hours of freedom they

a photographic approach that is distinctive and

enjoy each week - those brief yet precious moments

aesthetically bold.

in which they can be themselves.

These motifs are exemplified in the series Sunday,

Domestic workers are typically expected to be seen

which follows domestic workers from Ethiopia,

and not heard. They are the figures that tiptoe in the

Madagascar, Sri-Lanka and the Philippines on

background as they tend to the lives of the ‘more

their only day off, Sunday. For a few hours on a

elite.’ But in the making of Sunday, Boulos draws

Sunday, the presence of these domestic workers in

our attention to these women and acknowledges

Beirut is visible, and in certain neighbourhoods the

them as the focus of her artistic vision.

atmosphere is briefly but noticeably changed. “I

I always saw them as representatives of both social and political struggles. I wanted to photograph them outside their work, as women, and not as ‘cleaning women’

always saw them as representatives of both social

The images composing Sunday are bold and

and political struggles. I wanted to photograph them

colourful. Boulos works in a distinct photographic

outside their work, as women, and not as ‘cleaning

style combining high contrast, sharp focus and

women’ as they are so often referred to by my fellow

dynamic compositions. The aesthetic emphasizes

citizens in Lebanon.”

the joyous nature of these weekly meetings

documents one day in the lives of foreign domestic

between workers. Scenes of women dancing,

workers employed under Beirut’s Kafala system, and

For the creation of Sunday, Boulos takes an interest

worshipping and gathering outside are rendered

therefore by default the series comments on the

in these women as they enjoy their free time, and

in vibrant colours, giving the images a playful and

injustice, discrimination and exploitation that remain

documents the places they go to escape the

positive quality, and highlighting the values of

prevalent in the city’s social and political structures

everyday reality of the Kafala system.

companionship, celebration and sisterhood that

today. But more accurately Sunday is a series about

are at the core of each worker’s Sunday experience.

community and triumph over oppression. Gathering

‘Kafala’ means sponsor in Arabic. It is a system used

in laughter and celebration, the women of Sunday

in the Gulf region and the Middle East to manage

Boulos often uses her camera as a tool for engaging

are captured by Boulos in moments of bliss and

migrant workers. Every migrant domestic worker is

in social and political dialogue, a common thread

belonging as they rise above their circumstances

required to have a sponsor to legally live in Lebanon.

found throughout her photography practise. Sunday

and forget, for a day, that they are anything but free.

126 tribe


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