Jaber AlAzmeh

Wounds

Once the situation erupted in Syria and in the crucial first ten months of the Syrian revolution, I began this body of work“Wounds”

There was a sense of urgency and necessity to express feelings about what was going on around.

Working discreetly in the beginning, the pressure influenced me to choose subjects I trusted to reenact their experiences during the revolution, but I had to leave and continue the work while in exile, where I chose to become the subject of the photographs and involve my self so completely in the physical sense.

The creative process "flowed naturally” because of the emotional investment in the statement and outcome, and the result of this process manifested itself in a series of blood-red and black silhouettes of figures in motion, I chose to express the stories through those silhouettes because this was not about individuals, but it's the experience of revolution: its process, its small failures and victories, and the victims that it claims.

It is a subject everyone can relate to, it's not about politics, religion, or the like, it's about the story of people battling in extreme bravery to reach their freedom.

The Works

Exhibitions

• Solo, In collaboration with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, Brussels ,Belgium 2012

• Solo at Green Art Gallery, Dubai 2012

Exhibition Press Release:

For the opening of the fall season 2012 Green Art Gallery will be presenting Wounds, a series of works by Syrian photographer Jaber Al Azmeh. This series began and evolved along with the revolutionary movements happening in Syria during the crucial first ten months that the country was in turmoil.

Photographing individuals from his social circle, including those who were actively part of the revolutionary movement, Al Azmeh asked his subjects to re-enact and perform the stories that they had witnessed or heard about from what was happening in the streets.

As the protests and violence increased, Al Azmeh along with many other activists and critics of the current regime had to leave their country for their own safety. Isolated and left with only stories that he heard about the events unfolding within Syria, Al Azmeh eventually became the protagonist of his own work, re-enacting and photographing himself as he transformed from social observer to social activist.

Images of the conflict in Syria have been exploited by the media to such an extent, that it may be argued that the image of violence itself has come to define the whole area. Using a camera, the object which played perhaps the most important role in recording and transmitting all the events that have unraveled over the last 18 months, Al Azmeh was very conscious of how journalistic photography objectifies its victims. By highlighting only the outline of the individual’s body as it was in movement, his photographs eliminate the personalization that would occur by depicting an individual’s characteristics. His work is not about the individual, or Syria alone for that matter, it is about the universal collective who struggle against the face of their very own right to freedom.

Collective exhibitions

• Atassi Foundation "Syria Into The Light" AlSerkal Avenue, Dubai UAE 2017

• Gallery Holger Hohn “Overshadowed” Dresden, Germany 2015

• Institute Du Monde Arabe "Syria art 101 oeuvres pour la Syrie" Paris, France 2012

• Gallery Eight "Shattered Beauty" London, England 2011

Highlights

• Live on stage with the Syrian Orchestra

Art works from Jaber AlAzmeh and Tammam Azzam were exhibited on huge screens live on stage with 30 musicians and 20 choir from Syria, joined by guests from Africa, Europe and the US.

They orchestra performed at the opening of Glastonbury and Roskilde festivals and did a tour in Europe including concerts in Amsterdam, Istanbul, and a special show in London’s Royal Festival Hall broadcasted worldwide on YouTube

• “Rapture“ 70x105cm, Among to the permanent contemporary collection of the Staatliche Museum, Berlin

Selected Press