Myriam Boulos (b. 1992) began using her camera at 16 to “get closer to reality.” She graduated with a master’s degree in photography from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in 2015, joining Magnum Agency – the most respected photographic community in the world – seven years later. She’s the co-founder and photo editor of Al Hayya, a bilingual magazine that publishes literary and visual content on the works, interests and strife of women in her region. She has taken part in both national and international collective exhibitions, at ICP in New York, Huis Marseille in Amsterdam and at l’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. Her work has been published in Aperture, Foam Magazine, Time, GQ Middle East, Vogue Arabia, and Vanity Fair France, among other publications. Now, Boulos adds the 29th Foam Paul Huf Award to her repertoire, an internationally acclaimed photography prize that provides a platform for artists across the world.
Foam, Amsterdam presents the first solo exhibition of Boulos, celebrating her receiving the Paul Huf Award. The show brings together an intimate and deeply personal body of work, largely made in her hometown of Beirut, where the artist turns her camera towards the spaces, bodies and intimate encounters that exist beyond the immediately visible. Her images explore sexuality, desire and fantasy, while reflecting on the ways bodies and land are shaped by systems of power and oppression. Foam offers a unique insight into her practice, featuring several series including Looking for Tenderness; What’s Ours; Sexual Fantasies; and Fragments of a Collective Diary in Times of War. Together, they form a show that unfolds as a collective diary composed of photography, intimate observations, personal notes and the voices of people the artist encounters, where Boulos gives particular attention to the series Sexual Fantasies.
In What’s Ours, Boulos explores how people and land are shaped by systems of power and subjugation, such as military aggression. When the series was first exhibition at PhMuseum, the artist wrote that “In October 2019, entire forests in Lebanon were in flames, and the government did nothing about it. I remember sitting on my balcony that night, not knowing anything about these fires, but feeling very deeply that something was happening. Later that month, the country was hit by an economic crisis, right after which the revolution started…These images and words are part of a much bigger documentation. As an Arab woman, I think it is necessary to document my country from a local and personal point of view. It is a way of representing the intertwined struggles we face every day, but it is also a way of defying western narrative and control over us. We are not numbers or statistics.” In these images, there are traces of humanity within scenes of destruction. Heart shapes and names are drawn into thick layers of dust that cover cinema seats, or elsewhere, two naked men are entwined in front of a deep purple sky.
Looking for Tenderness focuses on the oppression of patriarchy and masculinity. These black-and-white images are remarkably intimate, with a harsh flash capturing men, often in stages of undress or in moments usually earmarked as private, in a “a vulnerable state, metaphorically mirroring the crudeness of the urban environment.” Meanwhile, Sexual Fantasies was the result of a 2021 callout on social media, asking women to share their ideas of pleasure, desire and sexuality. She explained that: “this project is a way of taking up space within the universes and desires that we are taught to hide. Trying to get rid of shame.” Boulos tackles taboos head on, encouraging her sitters to regain control of their sexuality, and their stories, by taking up space outside of the male gaze. Perhaps most significant is the sense of collaboration that comes through in this series: this is about authenticity, not novelty. As the artist continues: “I remember the first person I photographed telling me she felt represented rather than being exposed. This stayed with me.”
Boulos is an artist that makes space, for her community, her subjects and her ideas. Her photographs bring the private and political worlds, and imagined and lived realities, closer together. Audiences to Foam, Amsterdam, are treated to a full and varied show, where the full range of her talent is on full display. This is an exhibition that speaks truth to power, and reveals the humanity behind the headlines.
Myriam Boulos: A Collective Diary: Sexual Fantasies is at Foam, Amsterdam from 22 October – 20 January.
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. What’s Ours, 2019 © Myriam Boulos.
2. Collective Diary in Times of War, 2024 © Myriam Boulos.
3. What’s Ours, 2013 © Myriam Boulos.
4. Sexual Fantasies, 2021 © Myriam Boulos.
