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ZIYAH GAFIC: I don't think
photography's a [INAUDIBLE]
medium.
I see it more as a series of
impressions or constructs
about my personal projects.
I want to see them as open
structure and to allow some
liberty to readers
to draw their own
conclusions about it.
I think that Islamic countries
or Muslim world.
There's a huge number of
stories that are either
untold, or told in a
superficial way.
Coming from a Muslim background
in a country that
has a significant Muslim
community, I just wanted to
try to offer a different
perspective.
Photography for me
was a hobby.
I have no academic background
in photography whatsoever.
I was studying comparative
literature,
that's my formal education.
I want to tell stories.
Here you're using words, the
other place you're using
pictures, but it's basically
the same thing.
During the war years
in Bosnia, I was a
teenager, I was 15.
And I wasn't really able to
take part in what was
happening there, in the events
that were unfolding around me.
Because I was too young to
fight, and I was too young to
be a photographer.
Except of being subject of
those events, which means
basically a target, like
every other citizen.
That was kind of
a frustration.
When I started working
seriously, I was focused on
what was an aftermath of
the war in Bosnia.
Huge part of it is compensation,
maybe even
re-creation of the excitement
and adrenalin rushes that I
was experiencing as a kid.
And as I was completing that
body of work, I realized that
there was a number of places
around the world that had been
following a similar
pattern of ethnic
violence, fraternal wars.
A lot of these places share
one more thing in common,
which is significant
Muslim population.
So I got interested in that,
because I think photography--
for me, it's all
about empathy.
My previous experience actually
allows me to do that.
And that's how the project,
Troubled Islam, developed from
working in Bosnia to
all the countries
all the way to Pakistan.
This is from Pakistan.
The family with the things that
they saved when they were
fleeing the Western Province.
That is one of my favorites.
It's Kabul Cemetery.
It's oxymoron in itself.
I just wanted to make
a comparison
between these countries.
And one of the comparisons was,
obviously, just to see
how people cope.
And how they manage to preserve
the traces of
normality despite all the odds
that are against them.
Comparative method is not
necessarily a very fruitful
method to make conclusions.
I think with images it's
very fruitful.
I mean, if you put things
together, the reader can kind
of make a decision and make
conclusions on their own.
And this is the brand new book
that hasn't been distributed
yet and it's a very
special project.
So I wanted to make something
where my interference as a
photographer, as a human being,
will be minimized.
And I also wanted to make a
project that my subjects might
benefit from.
And the project culminated
in a publication
called Quest for Identity.
About eight years ago, I was
working on a group project.
And as part of that story, I
went to this facility in
central Bosnia which handles
the whole identification
process of missing people in
Bosnia, which is roughly
40,000 people have been
missing or killed.
They have database of DNA
and so on and so forth.
But among other things they also
have storage of archived,
cataloged items.
Personal belongings that had
been recovered along with the
human remains.
What happens, they invite
families and they browse
through these items.
This is a horrible process.
And I said, wait a minute,
wouldn't it be better if these
people actually recognized
these items on the paper
instead of actually physically
having to go to these
facilities and browse?
So that's the project.
So I just had to photograph
these items in
exactly the same way.
On a forensics table on which
the bodies are assembled, and
photographic them in a very
clinical, very detached way.
And to create this book and iPad
app and online catalog of
these items which will
correspond with
the physical archive.
It's amazing how absolute
detachment in form can
actually create an extremely
emotional body of work.
Everyone has a wristwatch,
everyone has family pictures
in their wallet.
It allows you as a reader to
create a story around.
Twenty magazines published that
across the globe, from
Spain, to Holland,
to the States.
And the project was supported by
so many people and so many
organizations.
So I think that's probably
the best thing--
well, not best, but
the most important
thing I've ever done.
I have an assignment from the
Sunday Times Magazine, which
regularly hires me
or runs my work.
And so they gave me
a commission for
this particular story.
We're flying to Riyadh in a few
hours where we'll spend 10
days to shoot a story on
Saudi Arabian women.
So I'm going to do photos, and
I'm going to shoot video
interviews.
I traveled on several occasions
to Saudi Arabia to
do different stories.
It's a place that it's actually
rarely reported from,
considering that it's pretty
difficult to get access to the
country itself.
And every time someone speaks
about Saudi Arabia, that's
what they speak about--
women's rights
to drive, to work.
So it's a good place to
challenge the stereotype.
So we came to Saudi Arabia
in Riyadh, the capital.
Riyadh is a weird city,
I would say.
It's kind of heartland of the
royal family, which is kind of
plateau in the middle
of the country.
I wouldn't call it a beautiful
city, because there's nothing
actually to resemble the fact
that this is one of the oldest
inhabited places on Earth.
Basically all the traces of old
cultures and civilizations
are kind of wiped out.
And instead of that you just
have this eclectic
architecture which combines
super modern American
architecture with some Bedouin
kind of tent-style roofs and
so on and so forth.
So a lot of glass,
a lot of metal.
Yeah, it is a kind of a place
where everything takes place
in the private places.
Either behind the walls
of the houses, or in
the shopping malls--
close quarters, so to speak.
It's because of the heat, and
because of this obsessive need
for privacy.
So nothing really happens
in the streets.
And to make things even more
complicated, Saudi society's
fairly segregated.
I wouldn't call it extreme, but
here it's more visible.
Talking to women in general,
it's not the
easiest thing to do.
And especially when it comes to
talking to camera or taking
pictures that are going to
be published abroad.
It's a traditional culture,
it's sensitive.
So as usual, I rely on local
knowledge and local
connections.
Good, yeah?
FAHMI FARAHAT: Absolutely,
ready.
Rock and roll.
ZIYAH GAFIC: Because no matter
how many times to travel to a
certain place, your knowledge of
culture and how things work
is fairly limited.
We hired a local production
company.
They have a lot of experience
in dealing with people.
I made specific demands of what
kind of women I would
like to meet.
The local production company
basically sorted it all out.
FAHMI FARAHAT: Ladies.
It's what I do for a living
now, fixing ladies.
ZIYAH GAFIC: I think there's a
general feeling that Muslim
women in general, and Saudi
woman in particular, is
somehow put in the backseat
of the society.
That picture is very fragmented
and largely
inaccurate.
So I'd like to get kind of a
cross section of Saudi women
and to try to photograph them
and interview them in their
private spaces or their
working space.
That way?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
DR. BOTHYNA MURSHID: In Saudi
Arabia when we go
out, we wear abaya.
Abaya, it's different from
region to region.
Here in Riyadh, we wear
mainly black.
For every occasion, we do have
different kind of abaya.
Fashion designer, they
would have a business
only to sell abaya.
And women they, of course, are
like oh, I'm wearing this
designer, I'm wearing that.
So yes, abaya, it's part
of the fashion now.
My name is Bothyna
Zakarea Murshid.
I had my doctorate from Yale
University in management of
chronic illness, which is
sub-speciality from doctorate
in clinical research.
ZIYAH GAFIC: Whenever we are
talking about Muslim woman,
Saudi Arabia's always picked
up as a bad example.
But actually, statistically,
women in Saudi Arabia are more
educated than men.
There are more women with
college degrees, or MAs and
BAs and PhDs, than men.
If the issue that we are dealing
with is that Muslim
woman are underrepresented in
the media, then I want to
dedicate my attention to her.
Can you move a little
bit that way?
Yeah, perfect.
That's why portraits
seemed like an
appropriate way to do it.
I wanted to give certain formal
values to the picture.
So I'd like to be accurately
composed.
After all these years of being
a photographer, I don't get
easily surprised.
But what keeps surprising me
every single time I get out in
the field and photograph is
how people are willing to
allow photographers to enter
their private space.
I think that's pretty amazing
in any country.
And also in a country like Saudi
Arabia where everything
is so private anyways.
Somehow there's this implied
trust between a subject and a
photographer.
So you have a cupcake store?
BASSMA ALHAMMAD: It's
not ours, we're
only opening the franchise.
But the original
was in Dammam.
It was founded by
a Saudi female--
it was very successful.
It's all cupcakes, and
they covered over
with the green cream.
About the Saudi women in
general, a lot of people think
they're pampered.
But the truth is no,
they're very active
but behind the scenes.
They're mothers, they're
housewives, they work, they
study at the same time.
A full job, also they're
starting their own business.
Recently I can see they're
achieving a lot.
ZIYAH GAFIC: On the
other hand, yeah,
they're beautiful women.
That's also another thing that
we are not aware of.
Because most of the images you
see are the images from the
street where they are obliged to
cover either part of their
body or most of their
body and face.
This was a more controlled
environment where I would
choose which part of the room or
house plays the person the
way I would like.
What I wanted to create
is this kind of simple
environmental portraits.
And the context, in this case
environment and private
spaces, actually tell much more
than just the figure or
the face of the person.
The story about Islam is a
relevant one, globally.
I think it's been widely
inaccurately
represented in the media.
That it's tried to be presented
as a conflict
between East and West and
between Christianity and
Islam, and I think that's
really dangerous.
So it's on us to shift
that image.
[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ZIYAH GAFIC: Oh, wow.
Jesus.
[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ZIYAH GAFIC: All of the women we
met, they all work and they
all have college degrees.
And equally so, I'm sure there's
a bunch of women who
are not educated and
are out of work.
But I'm just talking about
what I've seen.
And obviously, we've seen only a
small fraction of it, so I'm
not claiming that we have
the whole picture.
But I think it's important to do
stories that are showing at
least slightly a different
side of the coin.
Nice to meet you.
How are you?
Nice to meet you.
With photographers somehow, a
lot of us try to please the
stereotypes.
We put the blame on yeah, that's
what the media wants.
That's what the people
want to see.
How do we know what people
want to see?
I can only listen to
the common sense.
If I was the reader, what
I would like to read?
So this is what I would
like to read.
So I do the stories that
I would like to see
someone else do.