Camille Zakharia: Belonging

Belonging, an exhibition of photo collages by Camille Zakharia, opens at The Gallery at Emaar Pavilion on the Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard in Downtown Dubai, on September 2nd and continues until October 29th 2014. Eight major artworks from the “Belonging” project will be showcased at this venue and another 10 will be exhibited at Emaar’s stand at Cityscape from the 21st until 23rd of September 2014.

Having himself led a largely nomadic existence; Camille Zakharia has long been intrigued by the idea of belonging.

‘Do we belong to the place where we were born? Do we belong to wherever we live at any given moment? Do we belong to our family, our friends?  Do we belong to the things that we accumulate over the years? Do we belong to our ancestors, our religion...?’ ponders Zakharia.

In 2010, as part of his relentless attempt at understanding what binds a person to a place, Zakharia photographed 42 people, all of whom were living in Bahrain at the time. Using the photographs to create a series of photo collages, he produced large, colourful and beautifully disjointed images, often with little resemblance to the original participant.  Eerily similar, the resulting body of work serves to underscore Zakharia’s belief that individuals share more commonalities than differences.