Here is an article from Fast Company about a website Underground New York Public Library where Ourit Ben- Haim , a Moroccan photographer collects photos of people reading on the Subway along with information on the books they are reading. It's worth a visit.
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Portraits From NYC’s Most Popular Reading Room: The Subway
Street photographer Ourit Ben-Haïm captures thousands of New Yorkers immersed in books of all sorts.
Reading on the subway is something of an art in New York, where elbows and inquisitive eyes--not to mention all manner of hijinks--can make reading in peace a challenge. Moroccan photographer and artist Ourit Ben-Haïm
has made a sport out of watching subway-bound readers, collecting
candid snapshots of commuters immersed in their books on her website, The Underground New York Public Library.
Ben-Haïm, who works under the handle She Said Unprintable Things (a phrase borrowed from Lolita),
posts new images to the UNYPL on a daily basis. Along with each image,
she includes the name of the book being read and the author. If she
can’t identify the book, she’ll ask her Tumblr followers for help. “I’m
an artist and a storyteller,” she says. “The NYC subway provides a
constant metaphorical suggestion of the relationship between our stories
and our journey.” Her subjects are old and young, couples and groups of
readers whose relationships are ambiguous. Because she has over 10,000
followers, there’s an unusual feedback loop that often occurs with her
postings--people will respond not only to help identify the books being
read, but also to identify the subjects themselves.
Ben-Haïm studied comparative literature and history in college, but
has always taken photographs. She shoots with a Canon 5D Mark II, a
conspicuously large camera that doesn’t allow very much subtlety in a
subway car. But the 29-year-old says that interacting with her subjects
is one of the reasons she loves street photography. “Reactions tend to
be curious or puzzled when I shoot, and in general very accepting and
encouraging once I explain why I’m taking the photographs,” she explains
over email. “I love the process of making these photographs in part
because of the amazingly pleasant engagement with people.”
Given the growing prevalence of digital readers, UNPYL is a kind of
ad hoc memorial to the increasingly rare printed word. “There is loss
and gain with all change, and the shift to eReaders is no exception,”
says Ben-Haïm. “An eReader is less visually vulnerable, and my
perspective is that this is a social loss.” At the same time, she adds
that she loves her own tablet, and wants to portray the shift between
paper and reader, too. “I love when the shift is visually visible in my
photographs, in the cases where there are people with print books and
eReaders within the same frame.”
Above all, says the young photographer, the images are about "all
aspects of Story"--capitalization intended. “I’m fascinated by how we
apply ourselves to stories and discourse,” she explains on UNYPL. “This
library freely lends out a reminder that we’re capable of traveling to
great depths within ourselves and as a whole.”
Here is a piece from the Canadian Jewish News about an upcoming photo exhibit by Aaron Elkaim that documents Jewish life in Morocco It is entitled, "A Co-Existence: Lost in the Wake of Zionism" and will take place in Toronto.
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Photo exhibit is a journey into Jewish Morocco
Cara Edell, Special to The CJN, Friday, April 27, 2012
This image taken at the Al Zama Synagogue in Morocco
Aaron Vincent Elkaim’s upcoming photographic exhibit documents the history of Jewish Morocco.
His work will be displayed at the CONTACT Photography Festival for
the month of May at the Pikto Gallery in the Distillery District in
Toronto.
“The title, A Co-Existence: Lost in the Wake of Zionism, refers to
how Jews and Muslims lived alongside each other in relative peace in
Morocco since, really, the beginning of Islam,” Elkaim said. “Although
an Islamic country, the Jewish People were truly incorporated into the
Moroccan identity and structure of the country.”
Although Elkaim said he doesn’t deny certain dark periods in the
history, “on the whole, Jews were considered true Moroccans. They were
part of the country’s identity, and the country was part of theirs. This
is still evident in the nostalgia that exists in those who have left
Morocco.”
Elkaim’s photographic project is “a journey into the remnants of a
culture” that captures “an epoch of Judaism existing in peace with
Islam.” Reviving memories of “a past forgotten in the wake of Zionism,”
Elkaim said he aims to tell a story at odds with current perceptions of
Jews and Arabs.
The Jewish People arrived in the land now known as Morocco more than
2,000 years ago. Protected since the seventh century by the Islamic
principle of tolerance, they thrived, holding high positions in trade
and government. The Star of David, which appeared on the currency and
national flag, was a symbol all Moroccans shared.
During the Holocaust, when asked for a list of Jews, King Mohammed V
declared, “We have no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.” In 1940,
Morocco had 300,000 Jews, the largest population in the Arab world.
Following World War II, Israel’s expansion marked the beginning of an
exodus. Today, less than 5,000 Jews remain, Elkaim said.
“The underlying message is simply that coexistence did exist and it
worked. I think this is something that is forgotten in today’s political
climate, where walls are being built to keep people apart. I feel these
walls are blocking the view of what once was and what could be again.
I’m simply trying to find hope and truth in history, trying to keep that
alive.”
Elkaim said his inspiration for his exhibit stems from his family’s
history. “My father was born in the Mellah of Marrakech. He and most of
my family immigrated to Canada in the 1960s. They were always very
nostalgic of Morocco and kept the culture alive.”
He said the culture was always exotic, yet “normal” for him growing
up. “I took it for granted. As I got older though, I began to realize
that the culture could not last in the same way as the generations move
forward. The Jewish traditions may stay strong, but the cultural tie to
Morocco would fade.”
Before becoming a photographer, Elkaim studied cultural anthropology
and film in university. He found photography as a passion after
completing his degree, but it took a while for him to pursue it as a
career.
“For me the idea of exploring the world and its stories and cultures
was captivating. When I began to realize that photography offered the
ability to keep exploring and learning, I knew I had found something
great, but more importantly, it also offered me direction and purpose
for these desires. My explorations were no longer just for me – I now
had the ability to communicate the things I was discovering. I could
tell stories that I believe are important.”
Elkaim said he loves being part of life. “The work I do is a
reflection of real life, realities that aren’t my own, but that I am
privileged to experience and capture. It is the people and their stories
and watching them unfold around me that truly captivate me. It’s less
about a beautiful image than capturing what I am experiencing and
conveying a feeling about it.”
This year marks the third time that Elkaim is showing his work at
CONTACT. He is a founding member of the Boreal Collective, a group of
Canadian documentary photographers who had a group show at last year’s
festival.
His work from Morocco has also been shown internationally at the
Reportage Festival in Australia, the New York Photo Festival, the
Recconures des Arles festival in France and Fotographia Festival in
Rome.
Elkaim said he hopes people will react positively to his images of
Morocco. “I simply aim to shine a light on a history that might have
been overlooked in the current framework surrounding both Judaism and
Islam. I feel we often see things in black and white, but this story
offers us shades of grey, and I believe that truth and hope usually
resides somewhere in the middle.”
His favourite image from the collection is of the wind blowing
through the curtains of the Al Zama Synagogue in Marrakech. “Everything
is blue and so peaceful. You can just feel the presence of a sacred
history being preserved within the space.”
Here is an article from the Chicago Tribune about a photo exhibition by Moroccan artist Yto Barrada at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Her photos focus on post-colonial Tangier. The Renaissance Society has a few other Morocco related events connected with the exhibit such as lectures about Tangier and a discussion on the Arab Spring. If you're in Chi-town, you should consider a visit. __________________________________________________________ Several sides to Barrada photos:
Renaissance Society exhibit offers a look into Moroccan family
March 28, 2012|By Lori Waxman, Speical to the Tribune
Two peculiar photographs face one another across the gallery in "Riffs," Yto Barrada's quietly mesmerizing solo exhibition at the Renaissance Society. In one, round, rectangular red stains fade against the whorls of wood grain. In the other, familiar clusters of faint gray hexagons mark a dirty white surface.
The images are odd in and of themselves, but they are odder still given the dozens of photographs that surround them, pictures of solidly present people and places. An enormous strangler fig tree, the ruins of a famous villa, a tawny child riveted by a perched dragonfly, a picture-perfect view of the Rif Mountains, a building engulfed in the graphic lines of blue scaffolding, all of them fragmentary but undeniable glimpses of life in globalized Tangier, in post-colonial Morocco.
Barrada, who won the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year Award in 2011, makes her Midwest museum debut with "Riffs," a selection of work from 1996 to 2011, including photographs, films and a text installation. She was born in 1971 to Moroccan parents in Paris, grew up in Tangier, returned to Paris to study political science as a teenager, spent time working and studying in Palestine, Beirut and New York, then went back to Tangier, where she co-founded and directs an art house cinema.
Hers is a family history intertwined with the shady politics of a country at war for its independence, from other nations and from itself. A grandfather was abducted and never seen again, her father arrested for statements made against the monarchy. Family myths abound and are lovingly but skeptically narrated in "Hand-Me Downs." A deeply charming short film, it sets Barrada lore against footage from foundhome movies. There's one about a mother who suckled a goat and hid a political fugitive, a neighbor who had sex with a donkey, and justice served based on the number of suits owned. Two sisters chose their beds in a hotel room according to where they believed "the murderer" would enter from, and thus who would be killed first — the sister in the bed near the window, or the one near the door. Kids can be paranoid and cutthroat like that, but not every family knows political intrigue firsthand.
A pair of black-and-white portraits mark the entrance to the screening room, depicting an elderly man at a cafe table. He's an elegant dazzle of geometry in a houndstooth jacket and striped shirt, against a mosaic tile wall. He takes an old French newspaper clipping out of his wallet, an item about the first passenger at Tangier's airport. That man must have been him. Perhaps that's why he thinks Barrada wants to take his photograph, so many years later. But it isn't. He had been pointed out to her as the man who kidnapped her grandfather half a century ago.
Things are not always as they seem, and what you see does not — cannot — always show what's there.
For instance, the streets of Tangier, like the streets of all cities in Morocco since the country gained its independence in 1956, post Arabic names. But no one actually uses them. The Rue Moliere lives on, even if it is now officially known as El Mohtamid Ibn Abbad. Barrada wallpapered the gallery lobby with an alphabetical index of Rues and Impasses dating from Morocco's time as a French protectorate, alongside their post-independence designations. The pairs appear to be translations of equivalence, but perhaps they are closer to poetic slips of bureaucracy.
Sometimes it's a question of not looking carefully enough. A photograph of parched, bulbous flowers is called "The Snail." And there it is. Another frames a sunlit view of a dark grove. "Spider web in the Perdicaris Forest," notes the title, and there clings the web, and the name of a rich Greek-American man kidnapped in 1904 by a tribal chief, who successfully ransomed his captive for the post of governor of Morocco.
You can see some of that in a photograph, especially when it is printed as large as these two nature studies are, but not much. And yet, that's no reason to not take an image, or to stop believing in the power of images. On the contrary, it might be exactly the kind of understanding needed to create the kind of suggestive, layered, believable pictures that Yto Barrada makes today.
And what of those faded red stains and geometric prints? Barrada generously offers titles. "Family Tree" indicates a wall long covered with portraits, but where have they gone and who were they? "Marks Left by a Football" is just that, though who did what with the ball remains unknowable.
Traces like these are found everywhere, but rarely are they so visible. The lesson of Barrada's many photographs, be they of unfinished suburban homes or an abandoned cinema, a rotting dolphin or an airport lounge, seems to be to look carefully, then keep looking. And also, always, to do more than just look.
But then, here is an artist who used the home movies of strangers to depict her own family. And why not? We don't actually know what they look like.
"Yto Barrada: Riffs" runs through April 29 at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., 773-702-8670,
Here is an piece from The New Yorker on a exhibition of photos by Andrew McConnell showing Sahrawi refugees and discussing their forgotten (or ignored) plight. It is currently showing in New York City. Click on either of the links highlighted above to see the photos. ________________________________________ May 10, 2011 Living Ghosts: In Exile with the Sahrawi Bedouins Posted by Caroline Hirsch
On a recent visit to the Half King gallery, I discovered Andrew McConnell’s thoughtful and poignant project on the Sahrawi Bedouins—now into their thirty-fifth year of exile from their native Western Sahara.
McConnell says: “In pursuing the Sahrawis’ story, what struck me more than anything else was how forgotten these people are. How is it possible, in the twenty-first century, for tens of thousands of men, women, and children to languish in refugee camps for three and a half decades—unknown? How can continuous U.N. resolutions and international laws be ignored and abused without censure? And how can human-rights abuses proceed unchallenged?”
McConnell decided to stage his portraits in the darkness: “I wanted to give a sense that this is one long night for the Sahrawis—lasting thirty-five years. My showing very little of the land emphasizes that the Sahrawis are landless. By lighting them simply and in darkness, I am trying to say, ‘Look! These people are here!’ Their statements are a grim rebuttal to international efforts in Western Sahara; the majority want a return to war. Finally, I wanted the viewer to see what I had seen: a people utterly forgotten, abandoned, hidden from the world’s consciousness—a people living as ghosts.”
