Into the Open: Ania Dabrowska John Nassari

About

Ania Dabrowska's work comprises of two photographic series and an installation. "You And I In Flux" (2006-2007) is a series of portraits of first generation international migrants who live in London. Actions performed by them are defined in terms of an emotional response to understanding of a notion of home. "I Used To Skate On Frozen Lakes" (2008) investigates the connection between autobiographical and collective memory. The photographs are sequenced from an archive of the artist's back catalogue, each choice dictated by a memory brought up by a conversation with one of the people depicted in the portraits. "Conversations" (2008) installation plays seemingly contradictory roles of bridging the works and marking of a border between them. Exhibited transcripts contain stories of the portrait sitters. The act of remembering documented through them is considered a necessary part of crossing of physical and psychological borders. In an interminable giving and taking Dabrowska's work reflects on possible forms of negotiation of different worlds and temporalities that influence our identity.

John Nassari's body of work, 'It's my home, even though I don't remember it' explores Palestinian identity in official and unofficial camps in Lebanon. For 60 years the Palestinians have been in exile, scattered across the Diasporas. His images reflect the lives of Palestinians across three generations. The work comprises of a series of larger-than-life-size portraits, exhibited alongside smaller images of close-ups and details of the subject's environments: alleyways, graffiti, objects and possessions. Nassari is interested in the politics of refugee representation and how ethnographers, historians and artists might respond to the challenge of representing embodied knowledge, memory and the senses. Many of the people in Nassari's photographs have no direct memory of Palestine. Their parents' or grandparents' experiences and memories mediate their own memories ' and yet a profound dedicated solidarity to the restoration of homeland and the right of return is dominate across the generations. John Nassari is interested in the question of second and third generation identity ' which many of his subjects are, and how they see themselves as refugees and exiles.