The Portfolio Project 2009-2010

Dubai | 10/01/2010 to 10/02/2010

In November 2009, the Middle Eastern arts organization Bidoun launched a new, monthly exhibition project aimed at highlighting the work of art photographers based in the UAE.
A wide range of images from the selected photographer’s portfolio are being shown each month on two flatscreen lightboxes at Shelter in Al Quoz. Bidoun selects photographers based in the UAE, focusing on those working independently, without the support of an agency or gallery. The Portfolio Project aims to provide an outlet for the many particularly talented and dynamic artists working with photography; for most this will be their first solo project exhibition in the Gulf.

Zeinab Hajian & Aisha Miyuki Ansari: January 10, 2010 – February 10, 2010

The Portfolio Project this month will be featuring two former students of the American University of Sharjah, Aisha Miyuki Ansari and Zeinab Hajian, both of whom were taught by AUS professor and artist Tarek Al Ghoussein. The novelty of compositional experimentation and thematic exploration that marks academic work in art photography distinguishes the January series and brings to light the 'theory, history and practice of constructed or staged photographic imagery'.

Zeinab Hajian

Zeinab Hajian was born in Tehran, Iran in 1986. She studied Visual Communication Design at the American University of Sharjah and since 2006, has been mainly engaged in the study of both photography and typography to construct an all-encompassing visual communication discipline. Her photography projects revolve around photojournalism and creative photography. Zeinab believes photography is more 'like a device, which documents an event, an opinion, and a point of view worth looking at'. Her work in photojournalism is marked through the investigation of the subject matter through the development of the photographic essay, revealing with it the process with which a story unfolds. Hajian has participated in a number of group exhibitions and has held a solo exhibition called "Photo-graphic" in 2009.

Aisha Miyuki Ansari

Aisha, of Japanese-Pakistani origin, was raised between Japan, the U.A.E and the U.K. She first majored in Visual Communication at the American University of Sharjah for two years before she moved to Illinois in 2008 where she currently studies Photography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Aisha's multi-cultural background and movement between places put her in confrontation with the notion of "home" and the elements that make it so. As someone who feels like a foreigner everywhere she goes, the conventional definition of "home" being a person's country of birth or origin seemed hollow and unrepresentative. Aisha's attraction to photography as a medium for expression developed as a reaction to 'the idea of 'becoming a foreigner' which eventually got her interested in space and its relationship to people. She describes this process saying that 'space transports a viewer into what is obvious or mysterious, and it allows us to listen to the silences while we patiently wait for it to speak. When we are ready, it gives us the opportunity to pause, linger or respond. There is no definite answer in what we create, but it provides all the necessary questions to understand or realize something that has been true or false to us. I do this with photography, and it is important that I do because I co- exist with it. It is my bread and perhaps it is my "home"'.

For further information and high-res images of Zeinab and Aisha's work, please contact Alia Al Sabi at alia@bidoun.com

Zeinab can be reached through her email, g00020046@aus.edu Aisha can be reached through her email, aishamiyuki@gmail.com

Start Time: Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 12:00am
End Time: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 12:00am
Location: shelter, 209, 318th Road, Al Quoz Industrial 4, Dubai