Project To Collect Photography Relating To The Middle East

Works of photography by 10 Middle Eastern artists have been acquired by the British Museum as part of a joint project with the Victoria and Albert Museum to collect work by artists from the region.

The first works in the Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum were acquired in 2009, with the V&A focusing on art photography and the British Museum concentrating on documentary subjects.

These new works, which join the 37 so far acquired by the British Museum for the collection, address contemporary issues in the Middle East, including censorship, dictatorship, civil rights, women’s rights and the preservation of cultural heritage. Artists from Tunisia and Algeria are represented in these acquisitions for the first time.

Among the new works is a series by Jaber Al Azmeh in which people are pictured holding the Syrian government newspaper Al Ba’ath (pictured bottom right). The newspaper has been graffitied or manipulated to offer differing opinions on the ongoing civil war.

Work by one of the included artists, Jamal Penjweny (pictured top right), was displayed in the Iraq Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

Tunisian artist Nidhal Chamekh has used burnt bread in the printing process to give context to his series of images which explore the 1984 Tunisian bread riots.

Many of the artists in the collection work in war zones and other dangerous environments. The risks of such work were highlighted when French- Moroccan artist Leila Alaoui was killed in 2016 during her project to document women’s rights in Burkino Faso. Her works No Pasara and Natreen are also included among the acquisitions.