A thousand suns in the dark is an optical research on darkness which addresses specific ways of seeing that pertain to the Lebanese space. It proposes work which has been produced entirely in the dark though a camera-less process. While photography presupposes the mediation of light, it is precisely its absence here that becomes a way to generate images. The presented works are created by the choreographed exposure of matter and light onto photosensitive paper, extracting new images from the depths of existing ones that were longing to appear. The aim is to find in this matter – the soil, the water – and in light – the flame, the flash – a transformed image. The soil is no longer soil, the flame no longer a flame.
Gabriella Choueifaty & Mia Baraka: A Thousand Suns in the Dark is the eighth of 10 exhibitions as part of CATAPULT.visual’arts, a partnership between British Council Lebanon and Artlab Gallery. The exhibition runs through September 15th, 2022