Visual Anecdotes of an Archiver
by Suzy Sikorski
Bahrain during Friday prayer. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski
These past few years I have experienced incredible beauty within the Arabian Gulf region.
I’ve unlocked aged-old memories of a bygone past from locals recounting their childhood,
describing old places and faces that are no longer here.
These memories feel as if they are all recurring simultaneously in the present.
They are not existing in the past, but are instead happening right now as I type and you read this.
The artist is dipping his paintbrush on the palette.
The tired boatmen scratches his head after a high seafaring journey the night before,
his crew rests before the dizzying sun’s heat sets in.
The fish take in their last breaths on the slippery table as they are being auctioned off.
The photographer clutches so tightly onto his deckled black and white photographs as if he were able to go back in time.
A man holds a cup of freshly brewed chai and stares out at the creek.
Bahrain Friday morning. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski
Just as I witness these visceral moments, I am also actively part of this visual memory:
I maneuver myself like an acrobat within the delicately designed wooden dhows parked alongside the Dubai creek.
I hike the Hajar Mountains in Hatta, UAE and interact with the flora and fauna:
Miniature ponds with algae crusted tops whisper ancient secrets of the valleys, existing within the crevices of the age-old mountains.
I breath in the beauty of the canyons of Jebel Shams found in the the ancient city of Nizwa, Oman.
I witness the faint outline of gazelles during the sunrise in the Al Qudra desert in Dubai.
I am one among the local cats of Al Balad in the historic town in Jeddah, one of the most cosmopolitan and architecturally rich areas in the Peninsula.
My feline, curious cat character has come to claim this as my home too.
Friday morning along Dubai creek. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski
These are such solitary and momentary experiences that could last seconds or a day’s journey, to then linger in my mind.
One neither more important than the other.
During moments like these, I hold fast to my DSLR camera.
I can look deep into the eyes of a local elder during a conversation where he suddenly remembers his past.
Or I stare down at my sugary milky chai freshly brewed with a swirl of cardamom still spinning around and around.
Abandoned village in Sharjah. Image courtesy Suzy Sikorski
I revisit these visual anecdotes often.
I try to write them down in my journal as quick as I can.
Each of these become cherished visual momentos that run so fast you might not catch them again.
They all too quickly can easily slip out of my mind like sand falls in between my hands.
Then sometimes they reappear years later out of my subconscious during a good night’s sleep - with little context but just swirls of colors and spices, with unpaved sandy roads.
An evening in Deira, Dubai. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski
Enjoying a nice chai on a Friday morning in Deira. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski
CONFESSIONS OF AN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER:
You might consider I am some advanced camera-woman from these images.
Equipped with portable flashes, long range zoom, and colored films.
In actuality, I really have no idea how to control my manual settings.
(Although have been taught time and time again by experts in the field)
I only have one lens that came with the Canon camera package, which is the most basic and supposedly weakest, so I am badly due for an upgrade.
Although I hear nowadays manual is very old school anyways, so I have been given some slack by the photography pros here in Dubai.
What I do consider I have is an eye for the hidden gems of our days.
The beautiful lights, colors and patterns that are found in the crevices of the normalcies.
Whether I am in the monotony of the financial district of DIFC, the layered colorful streets of Sharjah, or a slippery fish auction and ice factory in Ajman.
Give me a place, and I’ll frame the eccentricities of the space.
Introduce me to a person and I’ll find and capture their idiosyncrasies.
My photowalk uniform is quite efficiently official and prepared for an amateur, I must say.
Sneakers and aviator sunglasses.
With a touch of color in case there is an impromptu photograph taken of me.
A small red backpack for my essentials and spare dirhams for when chai cravings come.
Water for when the humid heat sets in around 8am.
Along with my Canon camera case with so many handy pockets needed for when you least expect it.
Walking within the underpass in Deira, Dubai. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski.
In 2016 I bought my Canon 750D and microphone for the sole purpose of filming artists during my Fulbright research then.
With the help of a friend Amer, I set out on my first filmed interview sessions with Dr. Mohamed Yousif in Sharjah.
Rarely were photos taken to document the artworks; my camera was merely a way to snap b-roll films and the extremely long footage of the artist interviews.
Although equipped with the very basic essentials, I’ve had much trouble and funny malfunction stories on using this camera in the first few filming sessions:
Compositions were out of focus.
The camera was off when I thought it was recording.
The microphone was turned off when the artist shared their ‘aha!’ epiphany moment.
The battery decides to die during that time too.
The memory card fails me.
The memory is full when I arrive to an interview session.
The camera suffers from the shaky hand syndrome when trying to manually pan-zoom.
You name it, I’ve been through it.
But it was out of urgency I recorded the footage when I did, so I am grateful for the actual film that made its way into my blog.
It was only when I interviewed in summer 2017 the late photographer Saleh Al Ustad in Sharjah that I was exposed to the analytics of photography.
Saleh was responsible for spearheading the practice and education of analogue fine art photography in the UAE since the mid 1980s.
Once returning from his university in California in 1984, he set about the construct the first dark room at the Emirates Fine Art Society in Sharjah.
Photography here was both a science and an art form for him.
Following the passing of Saleh during the months I was interviewing him, I set out to find and connect the missing puzzle pieces of his life by meeting with his friends and colleagues.
Jassim Al Awashi was one of them who was also part of the early photography scene.
It was during an exhibition in Bastakiya, the older area of Dubai that I met a friend of Jassim named Ahmad, a photographer who invited me to do a photography walk with him.
This invitation revealed itself at a very transitional time in my life, while knee-deep in my first job at Christie’s, and also where my research muscles were flexing in a different way —that of capturing the image in its purest form, to find the most meaningful in the frame and the intention of the photographer.
And so I set out for an entire year to capture people and places, from the smallest crumbs of food to the large expansive landscapes; from everyday people on the street to posed models.
Bahrain after Friday morning prayer. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski.
Bur Dubai during Friday morning. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski.
These photography walks truly changed my life.
We were a group of photographers, some new and old faces, that would get together purely for the love of capturing that beautiful image.
To this group of people, I am just known as ’Suzy the photographer.’
Not a New Yorker, or a runner, or a Hip Hop fan.
For 6 months the group thought I was just an artist until I shared with them my actual job was at Christie’s.
I was just a girl who wanted to wake up and capture the sweet activities people do during the sunrise and early mornings.
Send me a location on WhatsApp and a meet-up time and I’m there.
Whether the pins are found in Bahrain, Oman, or locally in Al Qudra Desert, Deira, or Ajman.
I sit here today, putting the puzzle pieces of my own young life together just as I do for artists.
Reviewing my photographs, my written journal entries and my Instagram posts.
An archived life of 3.5 years full of visual anecdotes of these places and faces that has come to be my new home.
Bahrain. Image courtesy of Suzy Sikorski.