REACTION

Photography
2010
Series of 4 Photographs
Edition of 10

Reaction is a direct exploration of identity, and the subtle currents that shape human experience. I engaged in a visual dialogue between my two cultural identities—interpreting the aesthetics of Arabic calligraphy through a French-trained lens.

This series emerged from a movement-based expressive arts installation, where a French dancer was invited to flow with the unfamiliar forms of Arabic calligraphy. It was an exploration of interpretation and adaptation, a visceral response to the unknown. A reaction—the body’s instinctive engagement with movement, the pulse of response before thought. It reflects the way we meet unfamiliar experiences, not just intellectually but through sensation, rhythm, and presence.

At its core, this work explores the tension between freedom and conformity, a dynamic mirrored in the pulsatory process of life’s movements; a basic rhythm—an expansion and contraction. The nudity of the woman represents the freedom embedded in my identity, while her hidden postures embody the conformity in expansion, the moments when presence yields to absence, and belonging dissolves into separation.

Tracing the rhythm of movement itself—the unseen pulse that carries us between openness and retreat, tension and release. Each piece becomes a map of these shifting states, reflecting the delicate balance between surrender and emergence, stillness and motion.

EXHIBITION
2013 | Institut Du Monde Arabe, “SyriArt” 101 oeuvres pour la Syrie, Paris
2013 | Pierre Berge & Associes, Auction partnered with The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Paris