Ramadan in Yemen

Max Pam

East Wing
15 July – 10 September 2014

Ramadan in Yemen documents the travels of photographer, Max Pam though this amazing country in the late 1990’s. Working exclusively in black and white and utilizing a square format, Pam translated his exploration and experiences into a series of images and diary entries, reflecting his distinctive style: a layering of words and images.

Pam travelled across the country, sharing in the everyday lives of its people from the capital, Sanaa, to Shibam, Taizz, and Al Mukallah; then through the desert, along the country’s coastline and up into its mountain regions, returning with an intimate journal of his experiences. The additional layers of ephemeral material and writing creates a record of a very specific moment in time, giving an in-depth insight into his creative processes; “ …Because a lot of things you can’t photograph, but you can draw and write about… they are important to me; those other ways of defining experience.”

Born in 1949, Max Pam grew up in post war, suburban Melbourne in Australia. During his teen years he found himself drawn into the counter culture of surfing and was intrigued by the imagery in National Geographic and Surfer magazines, which planted the wanderlust for travel that would fuel his future artistic vision. Leaving Australia at the age of 20, Pam worked as a photographer, assisting an astrophysicist; they drove from Calcutta to London in the early 1970’s. From then until now, his in-depth, personal travel experiences have formed his artistic vision. Pam’s works have been published in leading international journals and are included in major public and private collections in Australia, Great Britain, France and Japan. He currently teaches photo-media at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia.