Review of Photographic Memory (edició 2004)

Cultural Writing. Middle Eastern Studies. Photography. Presented by the Arab Image Foundation, whose project is to "locate, collect, preserve, interpret and present the photographic heritage and visual culture of the Middle East and North Africa from the early 19th Century to the present" and edited by writer, film theorist, and video artist JalalToufic, this beautiful and haunting book showcases the photography of three Middle Eastern artists. "One way of accepting the saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words' regarding some photograph is to take it to mean that that photograph initially arrested the viewer's interior monologue for the interval during which on average a thousand words pass through his or her mind. It is only such a picture that is worth subsequently writing a thousand words about." (from Toufic's preface). The REVIEW OF PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY includes Toufic's essay "Saving Face;" a photographic dossier by, and an interview with Lebanese artist Walid Raad; and a photographic