'I believe that documentary photography can grapple with complicated, sensitive issues cross-culturally without resorting to simplified imagery whose content, style and intentions correspond satisfactorily to the average interests of an average audience. By questioning the ideas about others through which images of non Westerners are filtered, my photographs imagine difference by fostering historically grounded perceptions. My work is obsessed with questions like: What kinds of representation encourage understanding and empathy and what kinds foreclose it? How can photographs awaken curiosity about different ways of life and how can some others foster categorized stereotypes? How can a picture transform painful information into coherent social action? In addition to a record, my photos articulate an attitude'.

Yasser Alwan was born in Lagos, Nigeria to Iraqi parents in 1964. He lived in Lebanon and Iraq before his family moved to New York City in 1972. After dropping out of the photography program at the Rhode Island School of Design, he completed a BA in French literature from a small liberal arts college (Colby) in Maine. Upon graduation in 1986, he received a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship to write, photograph and travel in Egypt. In 1992, he completed a History MA at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of George town University in order to continue his photography in the Arab world. He moved to Jordan in 1992 where he worked as a freelance writer, editor, and translator to support his photography. In 1994, he began teaching English composition at the American University in Cairo. He left AUC in 1998 after receiving a grant from the Royal Netherlands and Swiss Embassies in Cairo to complete a photo project focusing on human rights. Scream, a catalogue of the resulting exhibition was published in 2000. Some of these photographs were awarded the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography prize in 2001.

He has written the introduction to Imagining Egypt, a book of photographs by Lehnert and Landrock published in 2007. His photographs have been exhibited in Cairo, New York, Frankfurt, San Francisco, and Canterbury.

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITIONS

2008 - The Liberty of Appearing Foyles Gallery London and touring

2005 - The World Affairs Council, San Francisco, CA

2003 - The Netherlands - Flemish Institute in Cairo

2001 - Friends of Photography/Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, CA; Group Exhibition of the winners of the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography; The Panopticon Gallery, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

2000 - The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Cairo, Egypt

1996 - Ewart Gallery, The American University in Cairo, Egypt

1995 - Foyer des Großen Saals, Burgerhaus, Frankfurt, Germany

LECTURES/PUBLICATIONS

Lectures:

Re-Mapping the Arab World: Photography and Orientalism, University of Exeter,

April 18, 2001 presented at the Conference: Orientalism Reconsidered: Emerging

Perspectives in Contemporary Arab & Islamic Studies

Documentary Photography in Egypt, Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia, March 27,

2000; The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, April 6, 2000;

Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, April 13, 2000 .

Photography and the Invention of Reality, The American University in Cairo ,

Oriental Hall, February 26, 1996 .

Women and Photography in Egypt, a lecture in conjunction with the Women and

Memory Study Group, The New Civic Forum, Cairo, September 28, 1996.

Articles published in The Ahram Weekly, Cairo, Egypt :

So Long As We Can Say..., 28 April-5 My, 1994.

The Real Invisible, 23 February - 1 March, 1994 .

Articles published in The Star, Amman, Jordan :

The Art of Photography, March 4, 1993 .

The Illusion of Democracy, June 17, 1993 .

Opinion Essays published in The Jordan Times, Amman, Jordan :

The Mystique of the Occident, September 22, 1992 .

Double Standards and Finger-Pointing: Which Direction?, October 1, 1992 .

Catch-22... or a Fragmented Democracy, October 12, 1992 .

Photography and the Invention of Reality, November 5, 1992 .

Cars and Car Culture, November 10, 1992 .

Of Heroes and Hero-Worship, December 8, 1992 .

Oil and Vinegar, December 31, 1992 .

Welcome to Colonial Society, January 19, 1993 .

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS

2001 Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography

2001 This award is now at the Fifty Crows Foundation

Jan 99-Jan 2000 Royal Netherlands - Swiss Embassy Grants, Cairo, Egypt

To complete a documentary photography project Exhibition held at the German

Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Jan 2000

1991-92 Al-Sayyid Hassan Taher Scholarship, Georgetown University

For academic excellence.

1986-87 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship

National independent study abroad grant to go to Egypt and Jordan

Photographic and written inquiry into traditional life in modern times.

1986 Phi Beta Kappa

EDUCATION

1992 Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Wash, D.C.

M.A. Arab Studies – concentration in history; Graduated with Distinction.

1986 Colby College, Waterville, ME, B.A. French Literature; Summa Cum Laude.

1984 - 85 Universite de Caen, France, Intensive study of French history and literature.

1983 - 84 Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, Studied photography and French literature

If you would like to know more about our work go to the Helen Bamber Foundation

The Helen Bamber Foundation 5 Museum House 25 Museum Street London WC1A 1JT Phone: 020 7631 4492 Fax: 020 7631 4493 Email us at info@helenbamber.org Registered Charity No. 1111048

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