School of Fine Art, Contemporary Art Practice, Public Sphere
Shamma Al Ameri is an artist and cultural activist. She graduated from Latifa Art College, UAE, in 2007 and became part of the founding team of the Culture and Arts Authority of Dubai before completing her MA in Culture and Creative Industries in 2013. She has recently completed the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF), with the Rhode Island School of Design, which supports 15 promising emerging artists from the UAE.
Shamma’s work explores many different media, often combining her fine art experience with digital technology. She has participated in number of exhibitions both locally and internationally and has recently been selected to represent the UAE in the touring group show Past Forward in the United States. She has also been exhibited at Art Dubai, Sikka Art Fair and in multiple UAE-based galleries, as well as in the UAE pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo. She has also been an artist-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation.
Her distinct photography style using a pinhole camera and traditional film has gained wide acclaim, and has been published in the Burj Khalifa Documentary Opus.
On Artist Proof:
“Artist Proof is a photograph taken by a 1960s 350 Land Camera and expired polaroid film. It was one of only a few test shots taken in preparation for a pinhole photography shoot with 4x5 sheet film.
Pinhole photography is laborious and the end result relies on the perfect symbiosis of many different factors. In this photo shoot none of the 4x5 film negatives in the pinhole box could be exposed due to an unknown - or some might say inevitable - error. In the blistering heat of the day, the disappointments of the numerous failures of not being able to capture anything on the 4x5 negatives was daunting.
At the same time though, I was also taking test shots using a 350 Land Camera to anticipate the exposure conditions for the main pinhole shoot.
Those test shots herein became the ultimate outcome of that day. To me, it highlighted the fragility of capturing things and the fragility of sustaining things.
Some moments and scenarios will inevitably be fleeting no matter how hard we try to save or capture them. On the other hand some things inevitably and deeply resonate in ways we have not even anticipated, such as this image and the few others that were taken on that day.”
Year: 2016
Edition: 1/7
Image Size: 80cm x 61.5 cm (With frame: 94cm x 75.5 cm)
Paper: Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Frame: Solid white maple frame with white passe-partout
