TAMARA AL SAMERRAEI
Born in Kuwait in 1977, Tamara al Samerraei lives and works in Beirut. She received a BA in Fine Arts from the Lebanese American University in Beirut in 2002. In 2008, she had a solo exhibition at Agial Gallery entitiled Something White. Tamara al Samerraei has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including MidEast Cut: International festival for alternative film and video, Denmark and Finland (2009); Radius of Art project, Fladern Bunker, Kiel, Germany (2008); Dar Al Funoon, Kuwait (2007); His Life is Full of Miracles, Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK (2006); Kent Explora, Strange Fruit, Lebanon (2002). She has also taken part in the Braziers International Artists Workshop, UK (2003) and AIW:A, Artists’ International Workshop, Aley (2005). “In Samerraei’s work we are always in front of the borderline between twin realms. The prevalent ambiguity of her spaces and what inhabits them stands between the familiar and the improbable. Her work takes us into a world of childhood, but is it? Or it is an adult who is reminiscing?... She poses difficult questions with a lightness and playfulness that leave her scenes seeping into our visual world with ease, and yet, unsettling.”(Abdallah Kahil)
NADIM ASFAR
Born in Beirut in 1976, Nadim Asfar is a photographer and filmmaker. Asfar received a BA in Cinema Studies from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) in 2001 and completed a postgraduate study in photography at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière in Paris in 2003. He had his first solo exhibition, Juin, at Fadi Mogabgab Gallery in Beirut in 2004 and another, in 2008, organized by Naila Kettaneh Kunigk and Sandra Dagher, entitled Immaterial World. Asfar’s work has been shown in a number of group exhibitions, including Presence, an exhibition of photography that toured to the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; GLstrand, Copenhagen, Denmark; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain; and the Museum of Modern Art, Algiers, Algeria between 2006 and 2007. His short movie Print 1 was screened at Videoavril, a festival organized by Askhal Alwan in Beirut, Festival ParisCinema, the Cinemaeast Film Festival at the Independent Film Center in New York, and Festival de Douarnenez in France. Of photography, Nadim Asfar says: “Beyond seeing, it is about imagining, moving, assembling and transporting. It is about folding and unfolding images… Images contain what one shows, and what one hides. Statements and secrets. Fictions.” Since 2004, he has taught theory and practice of photography at ALBA. Nadim Asfar lives and works in Beirut.
SIRINE FATTOUH
Born in Beirut in 1980, Sirine Fattouh lives and works in Paris. Far from aiming at making any denunciations, her work tackles the issue of the artist’s responsibility towards social and political situations. She is interested in rethinking political art and using artistic processes to elaborate on memory. Fattouh received a diploma (DNSEP) from l'École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts of Paris Cergy in 2006. She is currently enrolled in the doctorate program in Fine Arts and Sciences of Art at Université Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne, where she has been studying since 2000. Fattouh is also a researcher at the Centre d’Études et de Recherches en Arts Plastiques (CERAP). Her work has been exhibited in several venues, including: Michel Journiac Gallery (Paris, France, 2009), Festival Photography and Legends (Pantin, France, 2008), Cinemed Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier (Montpellier, France, 2008), Villa of Tourelles Gallery (Nanterre, France, 2008), Al-Madina Theatre (Beirut, Lebanon, 2008), Villa Savoye of Le Corbusier (Poissy, France, 2007), Paris Cinema Festival (Paris, France, 2007), Né à Beyrouth (Beirut, Lebanon, 2007), The Trianon (Paris, France, 2006), and Zico House (Beirut, Lebanon, 2001).
JOHN JURAYJ
Born in Illinois in 1968, John Jurayj lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and currently teaches at The School of Visual Art in New York City. He received his MFA from Bard College in 2005. Recent solo shows include Untitled (Not Here) at Alberto Peola Gallery in Torino, Italy in 2008 and Untitled (We Could Be Heroes) at Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, California in 2008. In 2007 Jurayj had a solo show titled Not Here at Massimo Audiello Gallery in New York City. He has taken part in numerous group shows including, most recently, New Acquisitions at the Hirshhorn Museum of Art in D.C. in 2008 and Political Draw at Walter Maciel Gallery in 2009. Jurayj is represented in a variety of public and private collections including the Hirshhorn Museum of Art, the British Museum of Art, and the Schwartz Collection at Harvard University. His work will be featured in the upcoming show Translation/Tarjama, curated by Leeza Ahmady and Iftikhar Dadi at the Queens Museum of Art in New York.
JENNIFER MAGHZAL
Born in Beirut in 1984, Jennifer Maghzal’s life has been punctuated by a series of immigrations, first to Christchurch, New Zealand at the age of 4, then to the Sunshine Coast of Australia in 1998, and, most recently, to London in 1999. Maghzal studied at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London from 2003-2004 and received her BA in Art from the University of Reading in England in 2008. Largely informed by her nomadic history and contextualised within the present-day landscape of globalization and transnationalism, much of Maghzal’s work stems from the complexities inherent in the construction of identity as a result of our multi-centered existence. Thematically, her practice investigates our relationship with geography and architecture, in particular, questioning how a ‘space’ becomes a ‘place’, such as when a ‘house’ gains such profound meaning that it evokes a sense of belonging and becomes a ‘home’. By extension, Maghzal's work considers the potential evolution in the concepts of belonging and home in our current state of constant mobility and the effect of this state on our understanding of ourselves. Maghzal currently lives and works in London.
KARINE WEHBÉ
Born in Beirut in 1972, Karine Wehbé graduated from the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Graphiques (ESAG) Penninghen, Paris. Wehbé’s work spans a wide range of media including painting, drawing, photography, and film. In her works, she often reinterprets things past, particularly those that relate to her own experiences. Her video with Philippe Azoury Suspendue was shown at the 6th edition of the Né à Beyrouth Festival and at the Jeu de Paume for the 36th edition of the Festival d’Automne à Paris. She has had two solo exhibitions at Espace SD (2006, 2003). Karine Wehbé has contributed illustrations to several Lebanese newspapers such as An-Nahar, as well as to the book La Rue Gouraud, a collaboration with Arnaud Rouéche. She has participated in the workshops as long as I’m walking led by Francys Alys and The ruin in the city by Lara Almarcegui and Cecilia Andersson, both of which were part of the project 98 weeks. In addition to being an artist, Karine Wehbé works as a graphic designer. Wehbé lives and works in Beirut.
RAED YASSIN
Born in Beirut in 1979, Raed Yassin is a video, sound and visual artist, as well as a musician (double bass, tapes and electronic) and a part-time curator. He graduated from the Theatre Department of the Lebanese University in Beirut. In his work, Yassin uses images, music, and text to deal with themes relating to mass media, pop culture, pornography, the city, Arab cinema, the history of contemporary art, disasters, and archives. He has exhibited across Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and Japan. Currently, Yassin lives and works between Amsterdam and Beirut.
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