Marwan Bassiouni
17:13:02, January 26th 2019, 2021
€ 150,- (Excluding tax, excluding shipping)
© Marwan Bassiouni Courtesy Galerie Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague.
The photograph is printed at the size of 10 x 10 cm with a 5,5 cm border on each side. Total paper size is 21 x 21 cm. Printed on Hahnemuehle matte fine art archival paper (bright white). This paper has very little texture and no glossiness.
On Prayer Rug Selfies:
"A few years ago when I left home my father gave me a prayer rug. At first, I didn't use it much but as time went by I began to carry it along with me wherever I would go. One afternoon, after completing the prayer, I paused and looked back at the carpet laying on the floor of an empty classroom; and for a second, it seemed like I had stepped outside of time, space and myself. So I took out my cell phone and made a 'prayer rug selfie'."
– Marwan Bassiouni
Prayer Rug Selfies is an ongoing long-term photographic diary that counts more than one hundred photographs. The series includes images of Bassiouni's prayer rug made by the artist instants after he performs his daily acts of worship. He began the series as a way to keep a trace of the numerous and diverse spaces in which he finds himself practicing his faith. The spaces in the series include parking lots, classrooms and galleries; hallways, airports and offices; parks and darkrooms but also empty mosques during the covid. These black and white spiritual and religious moments reveal an intimate side to contemporary Western Muslim experience. Through the act of photography, everyday commons space are immortalized as they become sacred. The work is presented as an exhibition and an online map and some of the images can be seen on social media with the hashtag #prayerrugselfie.
Photographs from Prayer Rug Selfies are included in the collection of the Nederlands Fotomuseum and an exhibition is now on show at Fotofestival Naarden (NL) until August 29th 2021. Historian and curator Kim Knoppers wrote on the work in her extensive essay 'Elegant Rebellion'. For more information please visit the artist's website: www.marwanbassiouni.com