SALEM, FARAH

Farah Salem (Kuwaiti, b. 1991)

Cornered – Untitled 2, 2016

Archival Pigment Print

18 x 12 inch image on 20 x 14 paper

Signed Edition of 30

Farah Salem’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted within photography and expands into video, performance, fiber art, and installation. Salem finds subtle affinities between natural landscapes, geologic time, movement, the performing body, the human psyche, fiber-material structures, gendered trauma, metaphors from her cultural upbringing, as well as music/dance traditions and rituals in the Arabian Peninsula. In her process, she merges present experiences of human and geologic happenings, while looking at themes of access, agency, and power. Untitled 2 is part of the Cornered series, a project that explores the experience of being confined in beautiful yet empty spaces. Salem’s subjects are trapped in boxes, representing the metaphorical cages and categories that exist in society and the complex reasons why we choose to remain within them.

Farah Salem is a Chicago-based artist and art therapist. She holds a BA in Visual Communications from Gulf University for Science and Technology and an MA in Art Therapy and Counseling from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Salem has had solo exhibitions at United Photo Industries, New York; Mana Contemporary, Chicago; Site Galleries, Chicago; La Galerie, Dubai; and Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait. She was named the Laureate Winner of the Women's Photographers Award 2017 and has been published by the Kuwait National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters for her book titled In-Between the Skyline of Kuwait City.