This workshop aimed to look at photographs from the AIF’s collections through a postcolonial lens, to shift the focus to what, in contemporary terms, a colonial presence – or absence – may look like through photography from the region. Looking into the AIF’s photographic collections provided new insights into the present, sparking an important shared conversation across languages and cultures about what the "colonial" means, today, in our context. On Thursday 11 August 2022, we held a public conversation with Rawsht at our premises, centered on his father’s collection; the perilous trip it took from Suleimaniya to Turin; the first conversation with one of our board members; and how his current residency at the foundation is helping him to better care for these images. The conversation was moderated by AIF director, Heba Hage-Felder. Thanks to the efforts of friends and members of the Arab Image Foundation, we continue to mobilize new and recurring individual philanthropists. A big warm thank you goes to all those individuals who encourage us to keep going no matter what. An up-to-date list of names we are indebted to can be found here. The 4 August 2020 Beirut tragedy will mark its 6 months gaping wound in February while we are compelled to move on. As we explore a long-time need to relocate, the urgency to do so now is daunting. Striking a balance between bigger facilities to accommodate our 5-year priorities including handling the pending collections, and the existential necessity to be frugal and cautious for sustainability are keeping us awake at night. What can be adapted to our context in terms of structure and preservation processes? This month we highlight one initiative and reference in our line of work. The Image Permanence Institute for instance highlights sustainable preservation practices for managing storage environments and working with new energies.

In early February 2021, Lokman Slim, writer, activist, critic and co-founder of UMAM D&R was assassinated in the south of Lebanon. We condemn all political assassinations and call on duty bearers to bring this crime to justice. Courtesy of Marwan Tahtah Wall footing is also known as continuous footing. This type is used to distribute loads of structural or non-structural load-bearing walls to the ground in such a way that the load-bearing limit of the soil isn't outperformed. It runs along the direction of the wall. The width of the wall foundation is usually 2-3 times the width of the wall. Figure: Wall or Strip footing According to Zaatari himself, the video installation is meant “to juxtapose two lives and two worlds that photographs in the collection of the Arab Image Foundation experienced: once in the hands of their original owners and once in the custody of the AIF.” [19] This juxtaposition highlights the materiality of the photographs while also dealing with their remediation as images and their transition from a private to a public, institutional context. If the heap on the wall is substantial or the soil is of low bearing limit, this reinforced concrete foundation type can be given.

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While Palestine before ’ 48, Albums Marocains 1900–1960, and Arts et couleurs were clearly conceived as exhibitions, Mapping Sitting was labeled as “a project by Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari.” Rather than taking on the role of curators or mediators, Raad and Zaatari made use of the exhibition as a form of artistic expression to “raise questions about portraiture, performance, photography, and identity in general.” [14] Simultaneously, they made their authorship as artists and their position as members of the AIF in relation to its collection a crucial topic. In the words of art critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Mapping Sitting thus “proposed a fourfold challenge to what exhibitions are, troubling the status of artists, artworks, curators, and institutions along the way.” [15] Although Mapping Sitting exhibited a group of photographers and focused on the specific characteristics of their practices, Raad and Zaatari clearly suggested that the photographers themselves should not be considered artists. The photographs were not to be regarded as art, but rather as the “content” and the “topic” of an artistically generated display. According to Wilson-Goldie, Raad and Zaatari thus “turned curating into art making, and transposed the building of installations, exhibitions, collections, and institutions into art, as well.” [16]

This publication is made possible with the support of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFA In her role at the AIF, Rana will work closely with the board of directors – who will collectively be responsible for the foundation’s artistic vision and direction. The board of directors is excited that Rana will join the foundation in this pivotal moment, and looks forward to a fruitful and enriching collaboration.Jacques Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” trans. Eric Prenowitz, Diacritics 25, no. 2 (summer 1995): 9–63, here 11, 27. Furthermore, considering the size of the AIF collection and the time it will take to digitize it in its entirety (which is essentially the objective of the foundation), the AIF and its online database at this point paradigmatically illustrate what Ernst calls “a divided memory world” in which some data circulates online “while undigitized photographs remain largely unseen in physical archives.” [10] Today, people are demanding that institutions listen to them to make the community voices central and push for not only care for objects but care for the people represented by them, or to whom these objects may truly belong. This is what a true community-centred approach demands.