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Tarek Al-Ghoussein was born in Kuwait in 1962. His parents are Palestinian exiles, and the artist lived in the United States, Morocco, and Japan during his childhood. Al-Ghoussein received his undergraduate degree in photography from New York University and a MA from the University of New Mexico. He currently teaches at the American University of Sharjah, but before entering into academia was a photojournalist. Both Al-Ghoussein’s personal and professional background play a prominent role in his artistic output, which deals with his Palestinian identity through a photography that appears to be documentarian, but is in fact fictional. His ongoing Self-Portrait series, begun in 2002, presents images of a solitary figure wearing a kaffiyeh (a traditional Palestinian headdress), walking in front of an airplane, ship, or waterfront, among other places or objects. Although the figure poses no obvious threat, the headscarf may lead some viewers to assume he is a terrorist—and this sort of knee-jerk reaction is precisely what the artist desires to point out and counteract. In a 2004 interview, Al-Ghoussein recalled a moment in 2003 when a Jordanian police officer took him aside for questioning (an interrogation that lasted 22 hours) after watching him take his self-portrait standing in front of the Dead Sea while gazing at Palestine in the distance. According to the artist, the police asked “what was I doing, who was I, why was I wearing the Palestinian scarf, why that particular scarf—not the red scarf or the other type of black scarf? And it just made me realize how charged that scarf was. And how much, even in the Middle East, it has become almost a symbol of terrorism. I guess that just made me realize it’s not just a symbol in the West, it’s become a symbol in the Middle East as well.”¹
More recently Al-Ghoussein has started photographing walls or barriers in a desert landscape. These images refer to the literal barriers that prevent Palestinians from moving freely in the world (Al-Ghoussein has never been to Palestine) as well as the artist’s own difficulty in overcoming prejudices against the Arab world. Several different series, identified by letters, make up this untitled body of work.
Al-Ghoussein has exhibited internationally at such venues as the Royal Museum of Photography, Copenhagen (2003); Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2003, 2005, 2009); Aperture Gallery, New York (2005); Singapore Biennial (2008); and United Arab Emirates Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009). Major solo exhibitions have been held at the Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi (2009), and Sharjah Art Museum (2010). Al-Ghoussein currently lives and works in Sharjah.
