East Wing is pleased to announce
'IN TRANSIT' Re-opening! 29 June!
at the Crawford Art Gallery
Cork IrelandEast Wing Artists,
Tanya Habjouqa,
George Awde and
Daniel Castro Garcia are three of the five international contributors to this group exhibition, which toured the United States last year and now begins exhibitions in Ireland and Germany. Also included in the exhibition are works by
Gohar Dashti and
Stefanie Zofia Schulz.
''In Transit' is a multidisciplinary presentation that focuses on the tentative, limbo-like experience of living between different cultures, exploring the stories of immigrants who traverse the no-man’s land that exists between home and hope.
The lives of those fleeing from unsafe, economically depressed homelands towards dreams of a more secure future are filled with boredom, sadness, fear, and apathy. They experience the deep absence of the loss of loved ones, familiar places, and citizenship. The photography and video works in this exhibition are created in Germany, Jordan, Lebanon, Italy, and Iran, and are testimonies to day-to-day survival alongside the struggle to find a sense of normalcy and stability and a place to call home.
Utilising photography, performance and filmmaking, each body of work examines the experiences of those thrust into a culture that is markedly different from their own. These stories illustrate the physical and psychological challenges faced, while additionally looking at the deeper discussion of what constitutes citizenship in the wake of the enormous migrations into Europe. Through their narratives, the artists strive to disrupt accepted misconceptions about immigration and otherness in order to tell a more accurate story. By collaborating with their subjects they give voice to those who must endure mountains of dead time while tangled up in bureaucracy in order to become more than merely ‘registered aliens.’ The exhibition is curated by East Wing Artistic Director, Peggy Sue Amison.
European exhibitions commenced in Cork, Ireland at the Crawford Art Gallery, which opened 6 March. The exhibition will them move to
Stadtgalerie in Saarbrücken, Germany in September (More dates and information to follow soon).
Tanya Habjouqa (JO) is an award-winning photographer, journalist and educator. Her practice links social documentary, collaborative portraiture, and participant observation. Her principal interests include gender, representations of otherness, dispossession and human rights, with a particular concern for the ever-shifting sociopolitical dynamics in the Middle East. Habjouqa’s work has been exhibited worldwide and is in the collections of MFA Boston, Institut du Monde Arab, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. She is a founding member of Rawiya, the first all-female photography collective from the Middle East. She is also one of four mentors for the Arab Documentary Photography Program, organized by Magnum Foundation, Prince Claus Foundation, and AFAC. She is a member of the Noor Agency and represented by East Wing Gallery. Habjouqa lives with her family in East Jerusalem.
George Awde (USA/LB) was born in Boston of Lebanese origin. Drawn to alternative narratives, his work delves into issues surrounding citizenship, nationality and sexuality, focusing on people living on the margins of the city and their parallel realities between life in Beirut and elsewhere. He graduated with an MFA in Photography from Yale University in 2009 and holds a BA in painting from Massachusetts College of the Arts, Boston. Awde presently lives between Doha, Qatar; Beirut, Lebanon; and Cairo, Egypt. He is represented by East Wing Gallery and teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar, and is also co-founder and co-director of marra.tein residency program in Beirut.
Daniel Castro Garcia (UK) was born and raised in Oxford, England, by parents who emigrated from Spain’s Galicia region seeking economic opportunities. As the son of immigrants himself, Castro Garcia wanted to use his work as a photographer and filmmaker to help migrants/refugees have their voices heard. Since May 2015, he has revisited many of Europe’s refugee/ migrant hotspots. The book,Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015 – 2016 was self published in 2016, with graphic designer Thomas Saxby and producer Jade Morris. In 2017 Castro Garcia received the British Journal of Photography’s International Photography Award and selected as a grantee by the Magnum Foundation Fund. He was also awarded the 2017 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. Castro Garcia is represented by East Wing Gallery. He is lives and works in Sicily.
Gohar Dashti (IR) received her M.A. in Photography from the Fine Art University of Tehran in 2005. After studying photography in Iran, she has spent the last thirteen years focusing her practice on social issues with particular references to history and culture through a convergence of interests in anthropology and sociology. Her practice continuously develops from life events and connection between the personal and the universal, the political and the fantasized. Her work has been exhibited around the world and is in collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (JP), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (USA), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City (USA), National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (USA), Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago (USA), and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (FR). Dashti presently lives with her family between Iran and the United States.
Stefanie Zofia Schulz (DE) was born in Germany and is a graduate of the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin. Her photographic practice focuses on the documentation of important social issues and the human condition. Her work has been exhibited in Festival Circulations (FR) in 2016 and has been published in i-D Magazine, Emerge magazine and Dazed digital. She presently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available on line for purchase through
Blue Sky Books.
An interview with curator, Peggy Sue Amison can be seen below:
