DAYS & PLACES
Another Dubaï.
Growing up in more than one country and having more than a single family home can result in a young adulthood where a defined sense of identity remains elusive. Farah Al Qasimi has used art - namely photography - to examine her search for a cultural identity. A Yale University student, Farah grew up in the UAE and the US, her mother American-Lebanese and her dad Emirati. Her studies were initially in contemporary music, but she found photography allows her to better express herself artistically.
“The lack of a sense of place or home is something I had never been able to articulate before I found my art," she told the UAE paper The National in 2013. "In a way, I have multiple homes and families and I had a lot of trouble figuring out where I fit in."
Her images here are from ‘The World is Sinking’ exhibition, featured late 2014 at The Third Line gallery in Dubaï. After returning from her studies in the US, her initial process of photography back in the UAE was that of a tourist, she says, simply observing. The series depicts the urbane and domestic, showing her hometown in an unexpected light.
“My work is a response to the things that happen around me,” she told Buro 24/7. “... Extraordinary moments and painfully banal ones.”