Joud

For this year’s edition of the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography entitled Recover, the Photoforum Pasquart gave a carte blanche to curator Sorana Munsya (DR Congo/Belgium) who proposes a solo presentation of the artist Joud Toamah. In her exhibition, Toamah will explore the power and possibilities of reparation held in the gesture of sharing images. The project 'The River Shines Stronger than the Sun, لمع†ان†النھر†أقوى†من†الش†مس†  (2021-ongoing) uses archives of digitized images of family albums that the artist sources from acquaintances, friends and family members in Syria and the diaspora. Toamah collects pictures that have undergone processes of scanning, uploading, searching, cutting, pasting, renaming, compressing, downloading, forwarding, etc. As such, she is creating digital archives of private and intimate images. It is through circulating images that the artist Joud Toamah proposes a way to recreate bonds.  In its digital journey of re-location, the image acquires consecutive layers of relationality   (Petra Van Brabandt). By doing so, photography becomes a place where relation is possible.