Noor Abuarafeh: Art is a Family Memory

Retelling the past through her grandfather’s archive of photographs taken in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt.

Noor Abuarafeh, Stenographer (2013). Courtesy of the artist.

With text by Basak Senova, curator and designer.

Noor Abuarafeh’s work resonates between the collective and the personal, by recalling the past and proposing a different perspective with which to read an archive based on personal stories. Abuarafeh does this by re-archiving her grandfather’s family archive of black and white photographs that were taken in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt.

“Memories are, in a way, a package passed on from one generation to the following. They become pieces compiling the collective memory. Black and white photos are said to be burdened with nostalgia, particularly when the photos come from a family archive, where locations, people, time, and most important, the moment, is captured. They dwell in our collective memory,” she says.

Abuarafeh’s recent works explore elements related to memory, history and identity using public and personal archives including oral stories, blogs, photographs and books. The artist examines these elements through a process of dissembling, using an allegorical language to reveal different readings related to these elements (memory, history, and identity).

Abuarafeh explains, “Different elements may stand out forcefully to some more than others, often a matter of age, surely when the viewer perceives the fact that the people in the picture are no longer among us. This work is actually an initiative to create a new history for archive photos through dismantling its components, re-archiving them, as well as outsourcing them to, the general collective space.”

Abuarafeh got her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and design and followed this with a one-year study program in Lebanon (Homeworks Space Program) at Ashkal Alwan. In the last two years she completed a residency in Paris, at the cite International des Arts, and in Japan, at Tokyo Wonder Site. She was a member of the Open Studio group that organized several exhibitions in Palestine followed by workshops, lectures and collective projects, including the Young Artist Award Exhibition in Ramallah. Identities in the World in Japan, A Fish, a wish and an Untitled Event in Ramallah, Identities in the world in Japan, A Fish, a Wish, Untitled event in Ramallah. Eye on Palestine in Brussels and The Jerusalem Show VII: Fractures in the old city of Jerusalem. Abuarafeh lives and works in Jerusalem.