Qatar has been one of my places of residence. It is a country in effervescence, moving towards its future at high speed. Doha is its pulse. The present is already in the future. The past is in survival. My work on time suspended queries precisely these lost traces and imagines places of memory. Because my idea is to recount a memory destined to disappear or that has not totally existed. It is that of a country with strong traditions but which, strangely, is struggling to preserve its past and prefers to rebuild it with newness. So, I went looking for this lost time with the sense of emptiness and abandonment. Recalling souvenirs, the imaginary, by the romantic accents of the landscape. Ruins, stones, fragments, desert, water, characters out of time. A certain melancholy emanates from my images as if I wished to monumentalize these subjects promised to fall facing a consumer society in explosion. And it is the technical choice of using a Lomography camera that has determined much of the aesthetics of the project. The Lomography movement is a concept which manufactures new cameras, made from older cheap models found in the former Soviet bloc, functioning on silver halide film. […] The image becomes archaeological, an approach reminiscent of the first photographs, or that of painting. But this isn’t in the slogan marketing “Capturing life as it is” that I draw my inspiration. On the contrary, obeying traditional photographic rules such as the composition and balance of the image, is essential for me to obtain a truly creative work.
Maher Attar
BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ARAB WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY
The Suspended Time
Maher Attar
From November 11th, 2015 to January 17th, 2016
Photo 12 Galerie
14, rue des Jardins Saint-Paul
75004 Paris
France
Tuesday – Saturday 2pm – 6.30pm and by appointment
Free Entrance
http://biennalephotomondearabe.com
http://www.galerie-photo12.com
Picto Lab is partner of event www.picto.fr
