• The new exhibition Lest We Forget will explore commonalities in unrelated family photographs across the globe
• A accompanying book will feature three unique perspectives on the importance of photographs as holders of memory and expressions of cultural identity in the UAE’s Year of Tolerance
• The display builds on the seminal work of the Lest We Forget: Emirati Family Photographs 1950 – 1999 exhibition held at Warehouse421 in 2015/6
A lot of friendship is based on commonality. You listen to the same music; support the same sports team; visit the same places on holiday.
Regardless of where you’re from, you soon learn that ‘we are not so different, you and I’. The line is a cliché, sure, but only because more often than not it proves to be true.
That idea of commonality is the heart of a new exhibition showing at Abu Dhabi’s Warehouse421 gallery this month (June 12 to July 28). From family trips to the beach and birthday parties, the new Lest We Forget: The Universality of Family Photographs exhibition explores the similarities in unrelated family photographs from across the globe.
Built on the seminal work of the 2015 exhibition Lest We Forget: Emirati Family Photographs 1950 – 1999, this new collection is a collaboration with Spanish artist María José Rodríguez Escolar, who explores the similarity of images in the previous exhibition with her childhood growing up in Spain during the last decades of the 20th century. Viewed side by side, an unexpected synergy exists between disparate photographs taken by unrelated families living worlds apart.
The Year of Tolerance in the UAE also coincides with the fifth anniversary since the establishment of Lest We Forget – an initiative that has worked to create a robust series of exhibitions and books that delve into salient aspects of Emirati cultural identity.
By showing the heritage of the UAE in an international context, the exhibition (and its accompanying book) underpins Warehouse421’s ambition to drive locally-relevant narratives through thought-provoking works, and using it to bridge the UAE to the rest of the world.
Lest We Forget: The Universality of Family Photographs, Warehouse421, Mina Zayed, Abu Dhabi. June 12 to July 28. Admission is free. warehouse421.ae