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Cherine Fahd

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Cherine Fahd is an Australian artist who works in photography and video performance. She is also Associate Professor in Visual Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and has published in academic journals, photographic and art publications, and in news and media. Her work has been shown in Australia, Israel, Greece and Japan. She has received numerous grants, and has been awarded residencies in India and in Sydney at Carriageworks.[1][2]

Early life and education

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Fahd was born in Sydney Australia in 1974,[3] where her grandfather and his brothers migrated from Lebanon in the 1950s.[4] At age 11 her teacher took her class to an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She says that from then on, her focus was on art, and she often faked dentist appointments to skip school and go to the gallery.[4]

She studied at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales (now the UNSW Art and Design) and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996. She originally studied painting, but after art school turned to photography to capture moments and actions. She became professionally active in the 1990s.[3]

In 2003 she completed a Masters Degree of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts, still in the field of painting, before photography became her full focus.[3][5]

She was awarded a PhD from Monash University in 2016 and is an Associate Professor and Director of Photography at the University of Technology, Sydney.[3]

She continues to work in Sydney, in a backyard studio she shares with her artist husband, children and dog.[5]

Works

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Fahd's photography first focused on spontaneous gestures, and today addresses the difference between staged and spontaneous images. She also asks questions about why people pose for photographs. Some of her work humorously addresses the concepts of identity, race, appearance and concealment.[6]

"I am interested in the way photography, in terms of portraiture, presents an appearance, how we appear to others. This appearance is a signifier of so many things such as race for example. This in and of itself points to photography’s history as a tool used to classify people."[5]

Fahd has often worked in series. One of her first was about noses; the subjects' noses were wrapped in bandages as if they had had nose surgery.[7] Other series shown since 2000 include Sleepers, Camouflage, and National Types of Beauty.[8]

In 2003–2004, while in Paris, Fahd captured a series of individuals against a stone wall. There was a heat wave and the city installed sprinklers, and the photographs show various reactions.[9]

In 2011, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, Australia, Fahd led a program to share her fears and asked visitors to share theirs. She then created posters of text to present the fears.[10]

For Shadowing Portraits (2014–2015) Fahd asked practitioners working in photography to sit for portraits. She asked each subject to strike a pose and then copied the pose behind them.[11] In essence, she was hiding herself as the photograph was of herself, hidden by the sitter. The series was part of her PhD work.[12]

In 2016–2017 Fahd produced the Series You Look like..., a series of photographs of 12 men with beards. Two were of her brothers, often asked by their mother to shave off their beards because, as Lebanese men, they looked like terrorists. Other photographs were of men of different heritage. Fahd's series raises questions about how we judge people by their appearances.[8]

In 2018 Fahd was one of the artists invited into The National: New Australian Art (a Biennial presented by the Art Gallery of NSW, the Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney), Fahd exhibited at Carriageworks a series of photographs adapted from her family archive called Apókryphos, a Greek word meaning secret or unknown. The photos, originally taken in 1975, show the grief of a family funeral as well as a portrait of the Lebanese-Australian community of the 1970s. Each photo has been annotated by Fahd with both an explanation, and an expression of her feelings. That text is essential to the works.[13] The funeral occurred when Fahd was two years old. The photographs and annotations make public visual and private expressions of grief. The viewer becomes involved.[14] The deceased is never seen, only the mourners who are individually identified in the annotations. As the series progresses, her own comments became increasingly personal until she began to use children's intimate names for grandmother, the widow.[15] Following its presentation at Carriageworks, the series was acquired for the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Publications

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Fahd has had two books published of her work by M.33 Melbourne, A Portrait is a Puzzle (2017) and Apókryphos (2019) which won the Australia New Zealand Photobook Award.[16]

Her writing has been published on The Conversation, ABC News and SBS and academic journals.[16]

Grants and awards

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Collections

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Associate Professor Cherine Fahd". University of Technology, Sydney. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  2. ^ "How you can get in on the action at the Opera House's Antidote festival". Australian Financial Review. 27 November 2020. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "Know My Name". nga.gov.au. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  4. ^ a b "The art that made me: Cherine Fahd". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  5. ^ a b c Joyce, Rebecca (4 December 2018). "Cherine Fahd". Asialink. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  6. ^ Fahd, Cherine (14 February 2021). "The National, New Australian Art". The National, New Australian Art. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  7. ^ "Cherine Fahd: Operation Nose Nose Operation". 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  8. ^ a b "Up close: Cherine Fahd's photography studio | Stories & ideas | MCA Australia". www.mca.com.au. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  9. ^ "Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  10. ^ "Australian Centre for Contemporary Art". acca.melbourne. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  11. ^ "Australian Centre for Photography | In Conversation with Cherine Fahd". Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  12. ^ "Cherine Fahd, Hiding From The Camera For The Camera". Art, Design and Architecture. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  13. ^ "Apókryphos, 2018–2019 by Cherine Fahd". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  14. ^ "Apókryphos / Centre for Contemporary Photography". ccp.org.au. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  15. ^ "Artists | The National". www.the-national.com.au. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  16. ^ a b Do, Michael (14 February 2021). "Proxy Thousand Eyes" (PDF). Sydney Opera House. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  17. ^ "Site search: Moya Dyring Studio :: Art Gallery NSW". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  18. ^ Council, Albury City (15 January 2016). "MAMA Art Foundation". Murray Art Museum Albury. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  19. ^ Joyce, Rebecca (7 February 2019). "2018". Asialink. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  20. ^ "Artists | The National". www.the-national.com.au. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  21. ^ st, Visit North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000 Australia T. +61 8 8207 7000 E. infoartgallery sa gov au www agsa sa gov au AGSA Kaurna yartangka yuwanthi AGSA; l, s on Kaurna; Maps, Open in. "Collection Search". AGSA – The Art Gallery of South Australia. Retrieved 17 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ "NGA collection search results". artsearch.nga.gov.au. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  23. ^ "Cherine Fahd | Search Results | NGV". www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
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