Light from the Middle East

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Light from the Middle East examines how contemporary Middle Eastern artists utilize photography to convey stories, question narratives, and challenge perceptions. The artists featured embrace photography's ability to document while also subverting it to reveal its potential for manipulation and recontextualization. This book is associated with a significant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (13 November 2012–7 April 2013), showcasing over 25 artists from the broader Middle East, including North Africa and Central Asia. Their diverse perspectives reflect the region's complex interplay of personal, social, religious, and political themes. The collection includes a variety of works, from photojournalism to staged and digitally altered images, created by artists both in the region and in diaspora. Marta Weiss, Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, has organized numerous exhibitions and written extensively on photography, holding a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Princeton. Venetia Porter, curator of Islamic and modern Middle Eastern art at the British Museum, studied Arabic and Islamic art at Oxford and completed her PhD on Yemen's medieval history and architecture at the University of Durham. Her publications cover various aspects of Islamic art and culture.