The fourth Annual Guernsey Photography Festival presents an exhibition of French photographer, Scarlett Coten’s ongoing project, ‘Mectoub’, which takes a closer look at young men from the Mediterranean world, particularly the ‘urban generation’.
Beginning in the spring 2011, these young men have been caught up in the ongoing series of violent current events and have been striving for more individual freedoms; at times putting their lives at risk in order to experience their deepest aspirations freely. It was Coten’s aim to meet and document these young men outside of the tumult and despair of the front lines; challenging the way (mostly western) mainstream media views them.
Coten, carrying the exoticness of outsider, seemed to make it easier for the men to express themselves without inhibitions. The artist documents her subjects as they really are, avoiding clichés and challenging the stereotypes so prevalent in photographs of the region. By capturing these young men in a setting where they are able to express themselves freely allows her subjects to engage in what could basically be considered a rebellious act. It takes enormous courage for these men to expose themselves to a stranger’s camera, when living in a country where individual freedoms exist almost entirely behind closed doors.
Scarlett Coten commenced making Mectoub in 2012 in Morocco, she continued on to Egypt in 2013 and in Palestine and Algeria in 2014. The results are an intimate collection of images that succeed in opening up limited viewpoints of how Arab men are portrayed. The resulting images in Mectoub explore identity, desire, memory and the borders of these complex societies, where the question of individual freedom, gender and sexuality are central to the demands which are at the origin of the massive political, economic and social transformations that these countries are currently going through.
Scarlett Coten lives in Paris and works in North Africa and the Middle East. In 2000 she traveled to Egypt to complete her first documentary feature, spending months in the Sinai desert with the Bedouins. The series, produced over three years was published in 2009 in her first book, Still Alive. She was awarded the Humanity Photography Award in Beijing, China for this work in 2004 and was nominated at the New York Photo Festival in 2009 in the book category. She is represented by East Wing Gallery, M.I.A. Gallery in Seattle and Gallery 127 in Marrakech. Mectoub will also be exhibited during Mois de la Photo in Paris this November and Coten’s images will be included in a new compilation book by Thames and Hudson titled, “Photographers Sketchbooks”, release date October 2014.
FESTIVAL
Guernsey Photography Festival
From September 18th to October 18th, 2014
Guernsey
United Kingdom
http://guernseyphotographyfestival.com
[email protected]
http://www.scarlettcoten.com
Guernsey Photography Festival will also present Scarlett Coten in an artist talk on 18 September with photographers Sam Harris and Arno Brignon. 1pm – 2pm/Guernsey Museum & Art Gallery, Candie Gardens, Free
