Whose Gaze Is It Anyway?

A display curated by Omar Kholeif, that looks at the history of Arab pop culture through printed matter – posters, notebooks, diaries and book covers, as well as through film and video.

The inspiration behind this display began with the archive of Abboudi Bou Jaoudeh - a prolific collector whose underground treasure trove located in Beirut holds one of the vastest collections of Arab film memorabilia, from rare Arab film posters to cultural magazines published from the 1930s to the present day.

At the ICA, rare film posters from the archive will be presented in the UK for the first time. These precious works from a golden age sit alongside a newly commissioned work by Sophia Al-Maria who presents an imaginary poster and sketchbook for her unfinished debut feature film, Beretta, a rape-revenge thriller set in Cairo, which she has been attempting to produce over the past three years.