Icon Series
2006-2007 | Digital C-Type Prints (metallic), 70 x 105 cm
Over
the course of two years, Oraib Toukan searched everyday public
spaces in Jordan for a representative vernacular iconography.
Icon Series is the result of this journey - an exploration
in pursuit of a memory of the present and an investigation
into its role in the shaping of collective Jordanian perception,
and there-from, identity. ‘Jerusalem’ is an important and
ubiquitous centerpiece in the series. ‘God, the Nation, and
the King’ also reign supreme, along with green paradises,
peacocks, and horses. The end result is the subtle unearthing
of a pictorial vocabulary that is unmistakably ordinary, telling
of the power of the normal and the mundane in forming the
explosively silent consciousness of Jordan. The prints reveal
a language that weaves seemingly unrelated elements and anecdotes
into one single narrative.
The photographs are inspired by the intricate layers of visual
code that are unconsciously collected in one blink of the
eye. Much of this code remains tucked away in our memory,
stored as unprocessed data, and as such is often taken for
granted.
In Icon Series, Oraib Toukan takes her photographs
as though to make a memorial of some kind of present and not
past. Ultimately, each frame becomes a period piece, a witness
of its time.
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