Dubai Culture & Arts Authority to hold exhibition of pilgrimage centres photographs

To be held from September 15 - November 4, 2008 at Lobby Building 5, DIFC, The Gate Building, the exhibition titled "To the Holy Lands - Pilgrimage Centres from Mecca and Medina to Jerusalem" presents photographs taken by some of the pioneers of photography in the Arab world. The photographs, which represent the beginnings of Arab photography are testimonies to the courage and the skills of the Arab artists.

The rare collection of photographs belongs to the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums (rem), which the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority recently chose as its first European partner for exhibitions.

HH Sheikh Majid Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, said:

"One of the strategic focuses of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority is to vitalise the art and culture scene in Dubai through initiatives that promote the creation, practice and appreciation of diverse artistic genres. As part of this effort, the Authority seeks to organise events and exhibitions that put our society in touch with the Arab world's glorious cultural heritage and the history of our region's art."

HE Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, Managing Director of the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, said:

"The exhibition takes us back to the encounter during the 19th century between the newly discovered medium of photography and the Arab-Muslim world, which gave rise to some extraordinary works of art. These first photographers in the Orient, both Arabs and Europeans, shared a fascination with and a love of these holy places. They regarded photography as a wonderful opportunity to document these sites accurately and objectively. They also wanted to show things 'as they really were', to present a true record of reality. This exhibition is one of the many events that Dubai Culture & Arts Authority will host over the coming years to build understanding and appreciation of various art forms in Dubai."

One of the highlights of the exhibition is Mohammed Sadiq Bey's photographs of the pilgrimage centres Mecca and Medina. There are only two other collections of Bey's photographs in the world - one belongs to the royal family of Saudi Arabia while the other is in France.

'To The Holy Lands' is an exhibition that takes viewers back to the beginnings of the use of photography as an artistic medium in the Arab world. The works featured at the exhibition richly evoke the religious devotion and sacredness of pilgrimage sites in Mecca, Medina, Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the 18th century. They also provide fascinating insights into the emergence of photography as an artistic medium that can wonderfully capture the beauty and pathos of the human experience. This exhibition is the first of a series of joint ventures between the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority and a select group of leading international museums aimed at organising world-class artistic and cultural events in Dubai.

Other photographs displayed at the exhibition include those taken by the physician al-Sayyid Abd al-Ghaffar from Mecca, an important pioneer of Arab photography. He created fascinating portraits of people right in the middle of pilgrimage centres . Al-Sayyd abd al-Ghaffar was a friend of Christiaan Snouck-Hurgronje, a Dutch expert in Arab Culture, who took the first portraits of Muslim pilgrims, from across the world, from Java to Timbuktu, and from Maghreb to Baku and in Mecca. He was also the first European who documented different social classes in the region like Sheikhs, Sharifs, Pashas and scholars or citizens from Mecca.

The exhibition also features photographs of Jakob August Lorent, another pioneer in the history of photography in the Arab world. Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums possess the only collection of Lorent's photographs of Jerusalem dating back to 1846.

The presentation of these photos is of particular interest to photography and art enthusiasts in the Middle East as it visualises the tradition of pilgrimage in past centuries with the earliest photographs.

A catalogue with reprints of a selection of the exhibited photographs and introductory remarks by the curators Dr. Claude W. Sui and Dr. Franz Waller has been published in Arabic, English and German.