BIO
Manal Abu-Shaheen (b. 1982, Beirut) is a Lebanese-American photographer currently living and working in the Bronx, NY. Her solo exhibitions include 2d Skin, Soloway, Brooklyn, NY; Theater of Dreams, Bernstein Gallery, Princeton University, NJ; and Beta World City, LORD LUDD, Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Society of Korean Photography, Seoul, Korea; Queens Museum, NY; and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY. She is a recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship Grant, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency, A.I.R Gallery Fellowship, and AIM Residency at the Bronx Museum. Abu-Shaheen holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and M.F.A in Photography from Yale School of Art. She teaches at The City College of New York.
PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS
Beirut
This work focuses on the ways in which globalized communication brings idealized images from one culture in contact with the realities of another. Motivated by a lack of visual history of the landscape in Lebanon, I am building my own photographic archive of what Beirut looks like today: a city dominated by billboards. In one sense the advertisements serve as a visualized end energizing capitalist growth, and in another, they purport a mythologized western ideal that is incongruous in the post-conflict city. The advertisements and pervasive neo-liberal capital represent our most recent form of colonialism. What is new and fascinating about this system is that it employs images as its most powerful tool. This under-documented place is now occupied by images of a different place and people.
Fuel
The unique landscape that has resulted from the dominance of the automobile industry in the United States is the subject of Fuel. The homogeneity of strip mall architecture growing out of a culture that prioritizes individual identity is distinctly American. Commercial connector roads, rest stops, and gas stations are the locations where I photograph the architecture and culture of the American strip. I spend hours alone observing the strange rhythm created by these spaces, which are characterized by transient consumption – where the consumption of products is not necessarily the end but an odd and sometimes required part of getting from point A to B. Weary travelers, distracted workers, intense color, and signage define the everywhere/nowhere geography.
Julian
Since 2008 I have photographed my brother, Jarir’s, family. Jarir is a single father raising two kids on a farm in Julian, a town in central Pennsylvania. I am interested in his background as a Lebanese-American man who has adopted the American homesteader lifestyle. This is an ongoing project as I document his efforts to become self-sufficient.