From beautifully staged monochrome fashion photography, to playfully encasing the sun’s orb in a street lamp, immortalizing the shadows caressing a wall, and evoking the desolation of a train station, the memory of a scent or a provocative look, Badr’s images consistently conjure the poetic and precisely illustrate lucid moments with sharp eloquence. A veritable visual storyteller and a firsthand witness, Badr turned his lens to chronicle a plethora of scenes as overwhelming as the Shivaratri rituals, and the deafening scenes of emotionless public human cremations. He has documented the daily lives of locals in remote and extraordinary places stretching between Azaz on the Syrian/Turkish borders, and all the way to the Himalayas.
In this unique interactive installation, The Power of… on show at Ayyam Gallery, Beirut from April 19 till May 18 2012, Badr’s lens bears witness once more to a local tradition. Presenting two photographic projections and ten printed photographs taken during the 2011 Ashoura rituals in Nabatiyeh, south of Beirut in Lebanon alongside the actual tools employed by the participants in this ritual, The Power of… will immerse visitors in this multi-level experience, transporting them to stand alongside those who engaged in the ritual and share their experience. Engaging visitors interactively, this exhibition asks the viewer to question this cultural experience and the form of power at play, ultimately questioning the very essence of power, how it manifests and influences and whether such power is a positive or negative force.