Sharjah Art Foundation opens Image Keepers

Presenting works in various formats—from studio portraits to multimedia installations—the exhibition offers a panoramic view of artistic experimentation and engagement through the medium of photography.

The works in the exhibition navigate the sociopolitical terrain of the last six decades against a backdrop of the compressed, and often fissured, processes of modernisation and decolonisation. The first chapter of the exhibition presents portraits that testify to the diversity of experience across regions and times. The images record expressions of ethnic, civic and diasporic identities while revealing the intricate relationships formed between individuals and place. Through the works from her series ‘The Bride is Beautiful, But She is Married to Another Man’ (2017), Rula Halawani captures portraits of Palestinians taken just moments before the checks at the border crossing, speaking to the realities of occupation in Palestine and the resilience of its people. Sunil Gupta transports us into the everyday lives of diasporic South Asian communities in the UK four decades ago in his series ‘Black Experience’ (1986/2021). These intimate photographs offer a rare and heartfelt glimpse into his community in 1980s Britain, a time when the umbrella term ‘Black’ was used to describe all people of colour.

In the next section are works that use photography to depict what is obscured or made absent during times of conflict and transnational migration. The artists give the images form by embracing opacity, dissolving reality into abstraction or focusing on what is left behind. Placed in the central wall, Mame-Diarra Niang’s evocative series ‘Léthé’ (2021) and ‘Same Guent Guii’ (2021), where abstraction and dreamlike imagery evoke themes of identity, memory and self-discovery. Susan Hefuna’s ‘Landscape/Cityscape’ (1999–2002) series, captured with a pinhole camera in Cairo and the Nile Delta, draws us into a more reflective, textured world, where memories surface and fade like old photographs exposed to time and light.

The exhibition continues on the upper floor, where photography is embodied through multifarious materials, techniques and modes of presentation. In search of alternative ways to narrate history and envisage collectivity, the works deconstruct monuments and archives to reinvent them through speculation, performativity and humour. Mohammed Kazem reflects on the UAE’s rapid urban development in his piece Window (2003–2005), documenting the rise of a new structure next to his apartment building and the lives of the workers building it. Fehras Publishing Practices’ Disappearances, Appearances, Publishing (2015–2018) creates a pseudo-archive of a library housing over 15,000 publications from across the Eastern Mediterranean and North African region, to unpack the historical narratives and strategies of publishing in the region.

The exhibition itself aptly takes its name from an artwork titled Gardiennes d’images [Image Keepers] (1998–2001) by Zineb Sedira, an artist whose work celebrates the role of women as guardians of personal and cultural memory. Her three-channel video installation tells the story of Safia Kouaci, who has preserved the photographic archive of her late husband, Algerian photojournalist Mohamed Kouaci. Drawing on Safia’s story, Sedira frames remembrance as a living practice to weave personal and collective narratives across generations and geographies. Through this poetic meditation, Sedira recognises women’s role in keeping histories alive while underscoring how images can also serve as acts of testimony and resistance.             

The exhibition also features artworks by Amina Zoubir, Bani Abidi, Basma Al Sharif, Hrair Sarkissian, Kader Attia, Khadija Saye, Latif Al Ani, Rashid Mahdi, Rika Noguchi and Rushdi Anwar.

Together, their works create a rich and emotional journey that spans continents, generations and experiences. Image Keepers pays tribute to artists who turn to photography not just to document reality, but to challenge it, reimagine it and hold space for stories that may otherwise disappear.             

Image Keepers is curated by Jiwon Lee, Head of Curatorial, and Nada Ammagui and Osemudiamen Ekore, Curatorial Assistants, with Souraya Kreidieh and Shahd Murshed, Collection Department, Sharjah Art Foundation.