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Nermine Hammam

Upekkha
09.28.12 - 10.21.12
Exhibition — Lieu-Commun, artist run space

Nermine Hammam
Upekkha, photographic serie (2011)
Courtesy of the artist
Photo : Nicolas Brasseur, Le Printemps de Septembre 2012

Nermine Hammam
Upekkha, photographic serie (2011)
Courtesy of the artist
Photo : Nicolas Brasseur, Le Printemps de Septembre 2012

Born in 1967 in Cairo (Egypt), she lives and works there.
 

Having obtained a BFA in filmmaking from the Tisch School of Arts at the University of New York, Nermine Hammam worked as an assistant director on a number of shoots, notably with the American Spike Lee and veteran Egyptian director Youssef Chahine. Developing a keen interest in still photography, she went back to Egypt in 1994 and trained in visual design before setting up her own company, Equinox Graphics, in Cairo. Since then she has pursued a twin career as visual artist and creative director. By means of her company’s innovative campaigns on behalf of well-known Egyptian brands, Nermine Hammam managed to introduce art into public space. Her own work features in many public and private collections, and is exhibited regularly in Egypt and beyond (Photoquai, Musée du Quai Branly, 2009; Photography Biennial, Thessaloniki, 2010).

At les Abattoirs – Musée Frac Occitanie Toulouse she is showing work that echoes the recent political upheavals in Egypt. This series entitled Upekkha (the word for the Buddhist concept of equanimity) was presented at the ninth Photography Biennale of Bamako in 2011. Although in France at the time, the artist closely followed the demonstrations and historic uprising against Hosni Moubarak in January 2011. On arriving in Cairo she was struck by the sight of tanks occupying the city. This vision took her back to 1973, when she was six and other tanks were occupying the city after the Yom Kippur War (against Israel). But what she saw this time were young men who looked lost, holding their guns as if they were toys. She transposed them into colourful, bucolic landscapes, like kitsch scenes from old postcards, as if dreaming of an army far from battle. “This is no Picasso’s Guernica,” explains the artist. “The subject is the same: war. Its harshness, its brutal inhumanity. My images portray its opposite: they become a series of pieces about military tenderness, virile coquetry, and masculine frailty. It is a desire to document the other, more disregarded aspect of war.