By Suzanne Révy
What did Moses mean when he declared “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land?” Did he feel foreign among the Egyptians who raised him? Or did he feel like a stranger when he returned to live among the Israelites in Midian? Ultimately, it is a story of precariousness. For centuries, millions have endured lives of transience, forced to hide or move due to economic and political violence. Sadly, it seems such dire circumstances remain unchanged since Biblical times, as we continue to witness vast human migrations. Curator Peggy Sue Amison has assembled the imagery of five artists who consider the untethered lives of those who subsist as aliens caught between societies, in the timely and gripping exhibition “In Transit,” on view in the Roberts Gallery at the Lunder Arts Center of Lesley University in Cambridge through October 13th, 2019.
“Scala dei Turchi, Realmonte, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy” November 2017 (left) “Lampedusa, Sicily, Italy” May 2015 (right) by Daniel Castro Garcia installation view of “In Transit” curated by Peggy Sue Amison in the Rogers Gallery, Lunder Art Center, Lesley University. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)
The five photographers, Gohar Dashti, Daniel Castro Garcia, Tanya Habjouqa, George Awde, and Stefanie Zofia Schulz create a mix of staged and documentary imagery that address the volatility and vulnerability of those who find themselves forced to flee their homes. Each of these photographers has faced living in multiple cultures and brings a compelling personal narrative to the immigrant experience. Amison writes that these photographs are a “testament to the day-to-day struggle to find some sense of normalcy, stability, dignity and a place to call home.”
From the series “Stateless” by Gohar Dashti, 2014-15, courtesy of the artist and East Wing, Gohar Qatar.
Gohar Dashti’s immersive, large format photographs stage models among the mesas of a barren landscape on the island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf. Isolated and desperate, they depict contemporary versions of Moses’ flight from Egypt, with one couple embracing alongside worldly possessions that include a refrigerator and a television. In another, Dashti presents a pietà set deep inside a dark canyon. With both gravity and irony, Dashti employs this vast landscape to question the idea of borders and sanctuary. She seems to ask, can nature be our home or will flight from the familiar be an eternal human condition?
“Tomorrow there will be Apricots” by Tanya Habjouqa from the series “Five Years in the Lives of Syrian Women in Jordan” 2012-2017, courtesy of the artist and East Wing, Dohar, Qatar.
Like Dashti, Tanya Habjouqa creates staged imagery, but her subjects are women who fled Syria, re-enacting their own stories. Detailed captions offer a glimpse of the circumstances that brought each of them to a six-story concrete apartment block in Jordan. All widows of men who died fighting for a country they can no longer return to, Habjouqa’s interactive documentary project gives voice to those living in profound isolation from family and home. Her beautifully crafted images are weighted with a palpable sense of loneliness, as in her poignant portrait of a female figure offering an apricot from behind the translucent curtains of her new residence.
(Featured Image) From the series “Scale without Measure” by George Awde, courtesy of the artist and East Wing Dohar, Qatar.
George Awde has developed relationships with Syrian men who are living as refugees in Lebanon. Employing a large format camera, his urban landscapes and portraits are made at dusk, on the edge of day and evening, in overlooked sites such as empty lots. Both visual choices emphasize lives in the margins. His intimate portraits are enhanced by a case containing snapshots that the Syrian men share with Awde via WhatsApp, creating both camaraderie among the men and a deeper empathy with audiences thousands of miles away.
“Lina” (right) from the series “Duldung/Toleration” by Stefanie Zofia Schulz, courtesy of the artist and East Wing, Dohar, Qatar. (installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Stefanie Zofia Schulz and Daniel Castro Garcia address the migrant crisis in Europe, one in Germany and the other in Italy. Turning their lenses to those seeking asylum, they reveal the tenuous nature of living in, but not among, these European societies. Schulz focuses on a community of refugees living in “temporary” housing in Germany, some of whom have been merely tolerated there for up to fifteen years. Her lush portrait of young woman named Lina evokes a DaVinci or Rembrandt, but her face is weary and dirty. And Garcia’s portraits of African boys in Sicily were motivated by pejorative rhetoric that described them as “cockroaches.” Thoughtful portraits, many in prayer, reveal their gratitude and humanity. His heart-wrenching still-life of abandoned clothing represents the losses of so many who drowned in the passage to Europe. As “In Transit” attests, the story of Moses lives on as contemporary immigrants attempt to find a place they can call home.
“Aly, Gadiaga, Sicily, Italy” 2017 by Daniel Castro Garcia, courtesy of the artist and East Wing, Dohar, Qatar.
For more information:
https://lesley.edu/events/in-transit
A catalog for “In Transit” is available via Blue Sky Gallery
https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1529926
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