Sharjah Ruler Inaugurates Exhibition

SHARJAH: H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, inaugurated on Saturday, the art exhibition “The Other Side of Silence” by Hrair Sarkissian in the Sharjah Art Foundation.

The exhibition, organised by the Sharjah Art Foundation in cooperation with Galérie Bonnier Constellation in Stockholm, and the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, the Netherlands, is the first investigative exhibition by Hrair Sarkissian and will run until January 30, 2022.

His Highness toured the exhibition, where he listened to an explanation from Hrair Sarkissian about his works during the past fifteen years, which takes the visitor on a photographic journey to the squares of Aleppo, Latakia and Damascus, and through the skies over Palmyra and the snow-covered landscapes of contemporary Armenia.

The exhibition examines the histories of demise, the architecture of violence, and the possibilities of the photographic medium, and is based on two main commissions: a photographic installation entitled “Last Seen” (2018-2021) commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation and “Sweet and Sour” (2021-2022) commissioned by Bonnefantin.

Hrair Sarkissian stepped into the world of photography through his father’s photography studio, “Dream Color” in Damascus, and then traveled to Holland to study visual arts, where he continued analog photography, taking it as a main medium, and testing his capabilities through his tireless pursuit of elucidating the invisible narratives in conflicts.

The photographs that Sarkissian produced using a large-frame camera developed, and continued to produce throughout his life, embodying his preoccupation with the role of “chance” in capturing hidden narratives, as if he was an excavator and a storyteller at the same time. In addition to his work on the use of photographic methods to evoke the scenes revealing historical trauma, his works draw on individual and collective memory, delving into stories that official records and sources cannot tell. Such methods allow the spectator, through pre-designed scenes, to think about the formal aspects of the image, and assess the possibilities of what lies beneath its surface.

The exhibition inauguration was attended by Sheikha Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi, President of Sharjah Art Foundation, Sheikha Nawar bint Ahmed Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Abdulrahman bin Mohammad bin Nasser Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention, Mohamed Obaid Al Zaabi, Chairman of Department of Protocol and Hospitality, and a number of officials and artists.