Artist
Thana Faroq
Thana Faroq is a Yemeni photographer and educator based in the Netherlands. She works with photography, texts, sound, and the physicality of the image itself, as a way to respond to the changes that have been shaping and defining her life, and sense of belonging both in Yemen and the Netherlands. Thana's positioning as a photographer is informed by her reflections on her subject matter, tuning in to other people’s lived experiences with which she continually grows familiar. She also increasingly seeks her own story in the frame. Thana was a recipient of the 2018 inaugural Open Society Foundation Fellowship Grant and Exhibition and the 2019 Arab Documentary Fund supported by the Prince Claus Fund and Magnum Foundation and Zenith magazine reporting grant. In 2020, she published her first book, I don't Recognize Me in the Shadows The book was shortlisted for the Lucie Photobook Prize 2021, and it has also been listed as one of the Interesting Artist & Photographic Books for 2021 by the PhotoBook Journal. Thana received her BA in Government and International Relations from Clark University, and an MA in Photography and Society at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
How shall we greet the sun
“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.” ― Edward W. Said
How shall we greet the sun (ongoing) explores the personal narratives and complex emotional landscape of the lives of a small group of young women living in exile in the Netherlands. Many of these women, including Thana Faroq are in phases in life where they are challenged to construct identities within new cultural contexts and geographies of power, as well as within their memories and the nostalgic representations of the past they possess. The artist’s goal is to explore the emotional interior landscape in light of the changes that the women, including herself, go through, shaping their sense of belonging both in the countries of origin and the Netherlands. She creates a memory archive of feelings that are often lost in histories of migration and displacement, including nostalgia, loneliness, anger, happiness, joy or not feeling much at all.
Thana Faroq experiments with the textuality and the physicality of the photograph itself as forms of resistance. She often engages women she photographs and their children with the photographs and provides a space for them to interpret my visuals. The point of Faroq’s photographic production comes from a place of deep understanding of empathy and carnal experience. How shall we greet the sun responds to questions: How do women in exile cope with their emotions in the process of constructing a new identity? How does the changed social and familial context lead to new ways of managing novel emotional experiences? How can we explore this complex interior emotional landscape in a visual way?
Peggy Van Mosselaar’s practice circulates around the subjects of identity, mental health and care of the elderly people. She is a participating artist in FOTODOK's most recent exhibition Part of Me… Shaping Mental Spaces. The Tali Pusat project is a vulnerable and multilayered story about her mother, revealing how migration and colonial histories can influence one's personal life.
Pablo Lerma participated in an earlier exhibition at FOTODOK: Pass It On. Private Stories, Public Histories. Since then, we've collaborated on many levels. Often using archives at his starting point, Lerma's practice researches the concept of masculinity, investigating the lack of representation of gay men and the queer community throughout photographic history.
Walter Costa took part in FOTODOK’s Lighthouse talent program as a graduate from one of the Netherlands's many art academies. Trained as a pilot, the artist later landed in the field of photography; Costa's Autolykos Collection project is a visual investigation of 'the looting and online trafficking of archeological artefacts - a growing transnational crime'.
Giya Makondo-Wills is a British-South African documentary photographer based in Utrecht, where she moved a few years ago. Her oeuvre explores race, colonialism and systems of power. With Boarderliners, Makondo-Wills employed portraiture to consider what it means to be mixed race in the UK, collecting the stories of people she photographed.
Thana Faroe's project, How Shall We Greet The Sun, charts the personal stories of young women living in the Netherlands. Many of these women, including the artist, must (re)construct their identities, bringing their heritage and memories to new cultural and political contexts. Faroq is also nominated by Der Greif.
FOTODOK values projects that are rooted in the living experiences of their makers. The works we highlight reflect photography's ability to reveal what might otherwise be invisible: be it the representation of queer families in (historical) archives; the emotional landscape of refugee women; the illegal antique art market; or the impact of enduring colonial power structures.