AL-'AN ! الآن2016-2018
35mm - Black&White Gelatin silver prints + gatefold vinyl & CD Shot in Beirut and Lebanon between 2016 and 2018, AL-'AN ! (meaning Now! in Arabic) is an analogue B&W photography series coming along with the last Mediterranean travel undertaken by the musical collective Oiseaux-Tempête. After Istanbul (with the album Ütopiya?, 2015) and Greece (S/T, 2013), the band landed to Beirut - in the very heart of the "storm zone". With 17 different communities, its common frontiers with Syria and Israel, streams of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, the stigmata from a 15 year civil war still very much in the air, the social crisis bringing environmental and economical problems for all the area, this enclave that opens onto the sea appears to be a concentrated amalgamation of all the political challenges that are faced by the Middle-East. During several months and a few travels, I shot people and various situations I met. "As a seismograph AL-'AN! measures, aware to the heartbeat. The feeling of tension and confinement is mirrored in the open spaces of the night beneath a blanket of stars. AL-'AN ! embraces in this "Now!" the living and the dead, the world and us, the misery and the bliss of being. Here and now." (Alexandre François) Extracts published on 'AL-'AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams)' by OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE as a deluxe LP with gatefold sleeve 350gsm & printed inserts and digipack CD >> ORDER VINYL / CD |
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