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| Randa Mirza |
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| Born in Beirut in 1978 and based in Lebanon, Randa Mirza works with digital photography and live video performances. Randa Mirza's photographs from the series Parallel Universes (2006 – 2008) question how we respond to the daily media reportage of war zones and how we relate to the material that is communicated, while acknowledging that which is omitted. Mirza questions “how we can continue to live in a world where daily disasters are endlessly broadcast? What responsibility do we bear for the availability of such knowledge? Do we enjoy observing the 'pain of others' from a position removed in time and space? What is being communicated and what is not being transmitted? Are armed conflicts a new source of entertainment? Why and how do the media participate in this paradox? And what is so exotic about war anyway?” Regardless of the work's context, through its aesthetic quest it calls on our emotions and inner contradictions in response to such imagery. Ultimately, Mirza's work seems to want to reveal the absurdity of human existence in this world we are sharing. Randa Mirza's recent exhibitions include solo presentations in 2008 at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland; and in 2006 at La Stanza delle biciclette gallery (Vincenzo Cottinelli), Brescia, Italy. Her participation in group exhibitions includes in 2008 New Ends Old Beginnings, Open Eye, Liverpool, UK; Art now in Lebanon, Darat al funun, Amman, Jordan; in 2007 Sites of imagination, Center cultural La mercé, Girona, Spain; The representation of evil, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland; Moving Walls, Espace SD, Beirut, Lebanon and in 2006 Nafas Beirut, Espace SD, Beirut, Lebanon; Les rencontres photographiques d’Arles, Arles, France; and Chou tabkha ya mara, Art Lounge, Beirut, Lebanon. |
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