I was so excited about this project because whenever we are given a theme and I come up with a making assignment through it, I tend to disregard some very fun or nice ideas. After all, they are so far reached from the theme. Therefore this would not be an issue here and now for this project.
However, silly me thought that no constraints would be easy; narrowing down my ideas and deciding what I wanted to do for this project was hard. After much thought and excitement throughout yesterday, I decided I needed to stop overthinking and create what I wanted to create. I decided to create my photo gallery with some of my favorite photos with so many amazing stories behind them; I would call it the Gallery of Memories.
I got inspired by the showing of a photography exhibition in Manarat al Saadiyat called “The Shot,” which was a collection of archives of photos, if I remember correctly, one of the biggest archives of the MENA region. I worked at the showcasing and opening of the showing, and spending 8-10 hours looking at the images on display, I began to wonder about the story behind these photos and why the photographers felt compelled to take an image at that instance.
The quote “A picture is worth a thousand words” is not strange to us, which is why I enjoyed that exhibit, and I always daydreamed of showcasing random but meaningful captures for me.
My initial idea came from when I was browsing images on my phone in the subway, and I remembered this part of the showing:
I could feel the expression beaming through these images and stories being painted in front of me about these characters the more I looked at them, and I remembered how compelled I was to meet these people and ask them about the meaning of these photos, despite not having answers, I found a love for capturing moments and stories. This installation is what inspired this, which is my version of the exhibition:
Although these pictures might not make sense to most people, they make a lot of sense to me; despite how confusing the content of the image is or how simple it might look, these pictures have so much of who Sara is and things that have essentially shaped her to become the person she is today.
Game time: One of these pictures hung up on today’s display at the gallery of memories is the reason behind one of my tattoos, care to guess which photo?