“Complex Spaces” Exhibition -Visual Illustations -Contrast-Shahd Massarwa

Shahd searched among her family’s photo archive in the attempt to build her own perception around the concept of personal space. She chose two pictures from her family’s album, both of them dating back to the 1980s – one of her grandmother crossing the outside courtyard and the other of her aunt on the stairs in front of the entrance to her home in the old neighborhood.

Shahd then re-painted the backgrounds of the photos with a pencil in order to highlight the general feeling of insecurity. Although pencil as a material used for drawing has a prominent presence on paper, its disposal is easy and subject to changes upon ones will. Shahd, in turn, preferred to be faithful to the archive image and tried to convey it with its details, while adding her own sense of fear. She made sure to keep the characters inside the drawings as they appeared at the time, without indicating any changes in their features.

This personal work is based on the chronological paradox between nostalgia for the simplicity of taking a photograph in its time and a current revision, in the context of a general feeling of insecurity emanating from the private space – for Shahd, nowadays there is a general feeling that the home, the personal sphere, the private space is less secure than it was in the past.